Stuck passenger door VW Passat

Snickers Man

Had to remove passenger door trim from Passat. While working on it, the rod for the lock, or at least that part that sticks up through the trim and goes up or down to let you know whether the car is locked or unlocked, fell off. It's not obvious, at least to me, how to reattach it as the lock is recessed behind part of the door panel.

It didn't seem to affect the door (I have central locking) as long as the interior trim was off. It would still lock and unlock and open and close no problem.

When I replaced the trim the door is now locked solid. Replacing the trim meant reattaching the cable for the interior door opening lever. That lever is know very stiff and will not move unless I force it.

Anybody have any idea how I can get the door to open? From the inside or outside. And is that rod that fell off a necessity for a car with central locking?

hiltan

In my opinion you should not changed the trim by yourself so now try to open manually from the out side otherwise you have to open the door panel to fix the cable which attached to lever. To avoid any other problem you bring it to garage.

Snickers Man

hiltan wrote: »

In my opinion you should not changed the trim by yourself

Well, you're not wrong. But I was hoping somebody would tell me something I didn't know.

MarkR

You have two choices (ruling out time travel!)

Get stuck in and dismantle that door. Make sure you know how to take off any trim, and that you have all the relevant tools. Maybe there's a haynes manual for that car, or a guide online for removing the door panel?

Failing that, bit the bullet and to a local indepandant garage. Or maybe a crash repair place?

If it helps, blame a kid for breaking the door. I find that helps.

Snickers Man

Sorted it. Cost a tenner and a bit of effort.

Reasoning that the door had opened and closed OK while the trim was off, I figured that the problem must be with the internal door release cable and that I would have to get access to it.

So I resigned myself to having to cut through the trim. Picked up a replacement trim at a car breakers for a tenner. Might have to add in the cost of the brillo pad, latex gloves and elbow grease needed to clean it because it was MANKY The "insole" like lining in the map pouch was removed with little finger crooked and dumped straight away. Toxic:eek:

Anyway, Cut through the trim on my door with a Stanley knife and got hold of the internal door release cable. Unhooked it without difficulty and the door opened. :D

On removing the trim I found the reason for the problem. The internal door release cable has to pass through the metal panel between the trim and the door itself (which is used to hold the cabling for the window mechanism and other electrical items like harness connectors and radio speakers). This cable is held in place by a stiff rubber-like grommet on the metal panel. If you have to remove the panel, you have to push this grommet out, which I had done.

When reassembling the door panel, this grommet had not been replaced properly, so the door cable was not held in place properly and couldn't operate.

Very important if you ever have to take off this panel from a Passat door, or similar, to replace this grommet properly. There are a few reasons why you might have to do this: hammering out a dent, replacing the window regulator motor and/or associated cabling both electrical or mechanical. OK, so it only cost me a tenner to replace the trim but it was "entry level" plastic on a popular and relatively old car. If I had nice leather upholstery it would have been a LOT more expensive. Ditto if I had a car rarely found in breakers' yards.

Hope this experience of a lesson learned the hard way is of use to somebody.

Snickers Man

Just as a postscript: I was talking to my friendly neighbourhood garage mechanic the other day and he pointed out a tragic case in his workshop: a little Honda Jazz that had had its door crushed just a few days after its new owner had picked it up.

The repair bill was colossal, because of the expense of Honda parts. The door trim alone was €450!!! That was the same part I had paid a tenner for at a breaker's yard. And it wasn't hand stitched leather or anything like that, just bog standard plastic.

"Why didn't she just go to a breaker's yard?" I asked incredulously. "Because a Honda Jazz in a breaker's yard is as rare as hen's teeth, and because her insurance is paying for it anyway," he replied matter of factly.

Bang goes her no-claims.

Moral of the story reiterated: remember that grommet.