Door Latch.....Inner and Outer is bad

[Antz_Marchin]

Hey guys, I'm new to the forum and new to the "broken" door handle thing too (just bought an 03 3.0i with 58,000 miles on it). I have done my searching and have found dozens of threads but I just wanted to clarify the issue I'm having. I've seen many posts where the door won't open from the outside and warm weather or a haridryer will fix this but I'm thinking I may be in a differnet situation.

My door has been fine everybody got in and out a few times on Saturday and then out of nowhere 5 minutes after taking a short drive, my friend couldn't get out from the back passenger seat. I tried from outside and he from inside with no luck. Soooo, I had taken the car through a couple washes after the salt had been building up in 25'F temp range over a couple weeks and now I'm wondering where I stand. Am I frozen and need to warm it up to open it, then spray antifreeze on the latches and little holes or am I stuck with a cable that won't engage and a closed door that I'll need to take in to have the carrier replaced?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[TrickerZ]

I had a similar issue. If you can't get it to open, you can remove the door panel on the inside and push the locking mechanism manually to get it open. While you're in there, lube it up real good so it doesn't stick again. In my case, the cable had actually stretched, so I modified it to take the slack out of the cable. You might want to check the child safety lock as well.

[Antz_Marchin]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I'm going to hold off for slightly warmer weather here regardless but I'm guessing it is the stretched cable like you say. My guess is that it did freeze a bit after a wash and it stretched. The would make sense as there is zero tension in the handles (in and out) although the locks all work and the lock pin does pop up every time. I checked the maual for the child locks but it says that they would allow for the door to still be opened from the outside so I guess this isn't it.

I will admit that I am an aweful mechanic, I'm likely going to take it to my mechanic, just wondering how long it took you to fix your similar situation with the stretched cable so I know what to expect?

Thanks again

[TrickerZ]

My fix was about 15 minutes. The cable clips into a bracket, but there is a flare further down the cable that if you grind the center down a bit, you can clip it into the bracket and it shortens the cable about 1/4" If that doesn't work, you'll need to figure something else out or get a new handle. They're only like $30 on ebay if I remember right. I'm not sure what you can do for the inside lock if it's not the child safety lock. You would probably need to replace the cable as I don't think there's a way to shorten a stretched cable.