Driver door doesnt open from outside OR INSIDE
 

I did search but I can't find anything relating to my problem.

The driver door doesnt open at all....neither from the inside or outside. When I pull from the outside I can tell its not hooked up to anything.

Is it possible to take the door panel off while the door is closed?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

corroded cabling. the lock is double locked. has happened to myself and 3 others on this board. call bmwna and bitch and moan. they took care of it for me atleast. nothing diy you can do without risking airbags and stuff atleast in my case. i will try to post link to my story i posted on local bmwcca forums. hth!

heres the link, scroll down to see tech notes in one of my posts.

http://www.kcbmwclub.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=692

WEIRD!!!!....here's the story....

I read over your post and didn't recall if my window went down or if any of the elec functions working. So i went outside and climbed in through the passenger side. Window worked and so did every thing else elec. I tried to open the door but nothing. I held the handle open and banged it a couple of times and still nothing. I climbed out and locked her up. Then I thought I might as well see how loose the outside handle is. So I unlocked it and pulled on the handle and the door opened!!! It opens from the inside now....its like the problem was never there!

All I know is i'm happy I don't have to pay anything to get it fixed. I wonder what happened there. When I banged on the door from the inside it must have done something.

Thanks for the help dandruff!

I had that problem last friday. My wife came home and called me from the driveway. She was locked in the car. It seems that if the window regulator goes bad then it will bulge into the door handle and the handle will jam. So when you rolled the window down and then up, it released the handle on the outside.

When you roll the window all the way down then up does it make a clanking noise? If so then you need a new regulator. There is a DYI on the frontpage here.

I ordered mine from BMAautoparts.com for fairly reasonable price. Should be here tommorow.

I'm having the exact same problem right now. However I think my window issue is the tracking. If I roll it all the way down, it gets stuck and will not come up. I have to wedge a screw driver or rod and shove the window up a bit. But it still rolls up and down just fine as long as I don't go all the way down into the door. Anyhow, when I roll it all the way down and it gets stuck the door handle will not open from the inside or outside. Strange, got scared at first thought I broke something. I took the door panel off and it looks like a pain to replace anything in there.

I have such terrible luck, I could see myself having to call the guard of my condo building to let me out of my car!

What year is your vehicle?

I just had the same problem on 2/06/08. The car was parked on drive way for around 4 weeks, no extreme cold weather.
Then when I drove the car, the passenger front door would not open from inside or outside, there was no resistance in the handles.
Luckily I came across this thread, and bashed the inside of the door trim with my fist, it was painful, near the door hand area. I punched it about 10 times, slightly moving randomly. Then I carefully bashed the outside of the door around the door handle area, careful not to bash to hard or you will end up with dents.
Then I started the car and put the window up and down a few times.
Bingo ! I could now open the door from the inside and outside, no problems.
I think the banging, and operating the window must have unjamed the mechanism somewhere. Thanks for the tip, it saved me the garage repair bill.