Hi Everyone,

My drivers side door release finally failed completely after many months of intermittent operation. Initially, the first pull of the interior handle would fail to unlock the door. The solution was simple, use the central lock button to unlock the door. Eventually, my wife had to drive the car so it failed completely- she could not open the door from the inside but fortunately could unlock it. Very shortly thereafter, the central locking system lost the ability to unlock the door, and the door would not open using either handle- not a good situation at all!

Upon disassembly, I discovered that the bowden cable anchor point at the door latch mechanism had broken (thin plastic) and the bowden cable was no longer fixed so any pull on the cable merely deformed it and failed to transmit the force to the latch.

My solution was pretty simple- I used a pair (though it turned out only one was needed) of plastic coated cable clamps from the local hardware store. The clamps are ~1 cm wide and is basically a piece of flat stock bent into a U shape with screw holes through the tabs of the U. The cradle portion is covered with rubber/plastic to prevent wear and when it is screwed to the surface the tabs close around the cable, holding it in place. I used a washer and lock nut on the backside to keep everything tight. Getting to the nut to hold it in place is the only challenge, and that is only because the space is tight and you are doing it blind. I thionk I used a 3/16" bit to drill the hole- will depend on your bolt size.

Anyway, I put the clamp on the cable and slid it around to find a suitable mounting location then had to play with it a bit to get the proper tension on the cable so that the handle would function. I hate to say it, but the tension process is a bit of a trial-and-error process and that means assembly, disassembly, assembly of the door until it works. A good starting point is to line up the end of the bowden cable with the old mounting point then screw in the clamp. The angle of the clamp can be adjusted to alter the tension on the cable, so there is no need to drill multiple holes in the door.

Note that the picture shows 2 cable clamps. I finally made it work without the left-most clamp, using only the one closest to the front of the car. As shown in the picture there was too much tension on the cable and it would not pull the door latch.

The repair has been in use for a couple of weeks now and the mechanism feels crisp, like new. Much cheaper and easier than replacing the latch assembly.

Good luck,
Randy

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