Thread: How to open rear door?

cycle the central locking a few times then while maintaining a slight rearwards pressure on the door yank at the handle on the outside. IF you can get to the inside resting your foot up against the door while you repeatedly open the internal handle is the most effective method.

Once you have it open wash in hot running water dry with compressed air and then lube with powdered graphite or a dry set lube. If you use the dry set lube be sure to keep operating the mechanism while it dries. you can heat it to about 50 degrees C to accelerate the drying process

Dont use a liquid lube on it, that just attracts more dust and exasperates the problem.

Have the same problem, have removed all components and cleaned / serviced and checked. Works for a few months then locks again.Best method so far is to lightly pound the outside door handle with a rubber mallet whilst holding the lock release handle up. Last time sprayed all components with Lanotech, let it dry and so far no further problems.

Thanks for the advise, bought some graphite powder and dry lube stick from Repco, so I guess I will carry some tools and surface cleaner around until it decides it will open so I can do something about it.

From my reading on this minor issue it appears the child lock lever drops slightly.
This causes the handle to not conect.
The dust stiffens up the workings.

To open try...
Cycling the door locks while driving on rougher roads,
Gently hitting the door handle suround on the badge,

These 2 methods have worked for me twice.

When I worked at a Dealer the technique was to carefully hook the door seal out from the inside of the car and operate the child lock lever a few times. They always opened after that.

I find that the outside handle gets stuck in the open position. I cycle the locking and try to force the handle back out - you may also try banging the handle cover with your fist too.

To prevent the the problem - but not solve it, whenever you open the boot door, push forward on it and while still pushing then squeeze the boot handle lever to release it before pulling back to open the door. Never have problems opening the door when I do it this way.

Thanks for all the advise. Got it open today. Every time I pulled up I would get out and give it a yank. It opened today, so I spent the time to clean it all up with electrical contact cleaner, reassembled and applied lots of graphite powder to the mechanism and dry lube to the catch bar.
Tried opening and closing it at least 50 times with no problems, so I applied more graphite powder.
This will become a weekly event from now on.
Thanks again.

Originally Posted by wigitt

Thanks for all the advise. Got it open today. Every time I pulled up I would get out and give it a yank. It opened today, so I spent the time to clean it all up with electrical contact cleaner, reassembled and applied lots of graphite powder to the mechanism and dry lube to the catch bar.
Tried opening and closing it at least 50 times with no problems, so I applied more graphite powder.
This will become a weekly event from now on.
Thanks again.

Good to hear you have it sorted

And thanks for the reminder, only been 12 months since I powdered mine.