Rear passenger door cannot open: solutions?

[d24tdi]

Sometime in the last month, with no direct cause that I am aware of, the passenger side rear door of my 2004 B5.5 sedan became impossible to open. The exterior and interior handles both just stroke freely and obviously are not moving anything in the latch mechanism. The lock knob still moves up and down but has no effect on anything.

This is a new problem for me, except for two other factors:

1) This car's rear doors have been oddly intermittent in their response to the interior door release levers for the last year or so. Sometimes passengers in the rear could get out no problem but other times they had to be let out by someone opening the door from the outside, almost as if the child lock was engaged. Never could identify any pattern to this. This issue still affects the driver's side rear door when trying to open it from the inside: sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't. The handle moves and you can feel it moving the latch mechanism (including unlocking the door if it's locked) but most of the time it doesn't release the latch. It always opens fine from the outside, for now.

2) My 2005 Jetta wagon also has a rear door that is inoperable (driver's side on that car). I am assuming whatever issue is affecting the Passat is also affecting the Jetta and the path to repair will probably be the same too so this question is really about both cars.

I imagine it is probably not a coincidence that rear doors are affected in all these cases. I am guessing there is something that failed with the child interlock inside the latch but who knows.

Anyone dealt with this before? Solutions/tricks?

Am I going to have any options for getting the doors open without destroying something? Probably either an interior door panel or the latch? I can dismantle the door hinges and disconnect door harness at the B pillar but that won't do anything for the latch end of it.

 

[Zak99b5]

Did the cable with the block on the end pop out of the exterior door handle? Or perhaps it’s too “low” in the grooves that hold it, so pulling the handle out doesn’t move it far enough to make it unlatch.

 

[d24tdi]

That was one possibility I wondered about, but I can't see how that would cause the interior handle to also become disconnected?

And is that something anyone has seen happen on its own, anyway? What would cause it to suddenly come free?

Other than cold winter weather, there has been no unusual operating circumstances that I can think of which would have disrupted that door. In fact the rear passenger door is probably the one that is used least on this car. I use the rear driver's door often enough for throwing junk into the back seat and have a passenger in front often enough but I bet the rear pax door only gets touched once or twice a month. So I am having a hard time understanding what would have caused something to come loose as the door just sits there. But evidently that is what happened.

 

[PickleRick]

I've not had it in the passat but it's happened to me a few times in the excursion. The door lock actuator fails and it fails in the lock position. In the excursion I can pull the interior door panel to access with the door closed. Not sure this can be done in the Passat. On the excursion actuator I could force the door to open once I gained access to it.

Before the rear door actuator failed on the Passat it would occasionally not lock or unlock with the power door locks/key fob. It progressively got worse. The front door actuators were much easier to swap than the rear.


If you're interior is black and it's a sedan, I have a spare door card.

 

[Zak99b5]

That was one possibility I wondered about, but I can't see how that would cause the interior handle to also become disconnected?

And is that something anyone has seen happen on its own, anyway? What would cause it to suddenly come free?

Other than cold winter weather, there has been no unusual operating circumstances that I can think of which would have disrupted that door. In fact the rear passenger door is probably the one that is used least on this car. I use the rear driver's door often enough for throwing junk into the back seat and have a passenger in front often enough but I bet the rear pax door only gets touched once or twice a month. So I am having a hard time understanding what would have caused something to come loose as the door just sits there. But evidently that is what happened.

I asked, because you said the exterior door handles always worked before, even when the interior was flaky. So no, I don’t think the cable for the exterior caused the interior not to work. But it’s worth checking, because its going to be 100x easier to fix the issue if you can get the door open.

 

[d24tdi]

An unexpected update on this. I have been living with three doors for the last few months on this car, but last week had a passenger who is not accustomed to this car riding with me.... They reached for the rear passenger side door to throw something in the back seat, not realizing that it hadn't been working or thinking of any reason not to use it.... And to my amazement, it just opened like nothing had ever been wrong.

So somehow this issue fixed itself for now. I don't even know how long it has been back in operation since I haven't even thought to try it in recent months.

Must be something failing in the door lock module, right? Should I replace both rear modules now while both doors are still working and access is easy?

I've had to do a lot of front modules on these cars but usually just for lock actuator or other electrical misbehavior, never something mechanical like this, and I can't think of the last rear door module I replaced for any reason on a Mk4 or B5.

Not sure I understand what failed or how it resolved itself. The only thing I can think that has changed is the return of warm weather.

 

[caffeine]

On a Mk4, which uses the same door latch assemblies, I've had a sticky latch refuse to open after being closed, but a decent whack or body slam to the door latch area would get it to open again (obviously making sure to use nothing that could damage the paint). Probably driving it over a rough road or something to that effect jarred it enough to allow it to open again. If it were me I would replace the latch while it's easily accessible. If it happened once, it will happen again.

 

[d24tdi]

Thanks. Yeah, this is a new issue for me despite having changed a lot of these latch assemblies in my time as well, but interesting to hear that you seem like you have seen it before. I agree that it makes sense to replace while accessible. I'll probably do both sides since the driver's side has intermittently been troublesome from the inside as well, though not the outside.

I guess I need to hope that this same issue that's plaguing the rear driver's door external release on one of my Mk4 wagons will similarly resolve itself or I can beat on it to free it up, and then replace that one too.

Odd that this only seems to be happening (at least to my rigs) on the rear doors. Is that what you have seen as well with this issue? I wonder if the child interlock function that is only on the rear doors is somehow involved in whatever is sticking. Microswitch and/or actuator failures seem common on the front latch assemblies, but not this mechanical sticking issue.

 

[caffeine]

Oh I should add that I've also seen this caused by the cable that attaches to the exterior door handle being adjusted too tightly.