Can’t unlock door!
 

I have a ‘99 SL1 — today, something’s happened with the rear, driver’s side door.
The door won’t open from both outside the car and inside. Don’t have electronic locks, just manual push-button locks on the interior doors.

When pressing the door button to the unlock position, it feels like it’s not going as far as it should. When I try to open the door with either handle, the ‘open’ door button slips back into the locked position. Seems like the lock is just plain stuck.

I wonder if anybody has experienced this problem and knows of a way to fix?
Hoping it might be something fairly simple to correct!

Thanks!

Sounds like one of the two bars inside the door has become partially dislodged from the receptacle it sits in on the handle itself. When this happens, things get bound up as you are learning right now.

I don't remember which way it slides, but you need to slide the handle and lock button either forward or backward to unlatch it from the inner door trim. Once you get it unlatched, you can pull it a little bit towards you. You should see two metal bars, one with a right angle at the end pointing down, the other with a right angle at the end pointing up. Each is held to the door lock paddle with a plastic connector that snaps over the metal bar once it is fully seated in The Assembly. He is sometimes become unsnapped and then the bar works its way out and you get what we have here today.

Each bar can only possibly go to one of the two attachment points as they are neither long enough nor bent at the correct angles to possibly hook at the opposite location.

So the game becomes getting that right angle section into its receptacle on the door lock paddle, then rotating the aforementioned plastic clip over the metal bar and clicking it into position. If you don't hear the click, it's not fully seated and will come out again very quickly. There's not a lot of space to work because you can't pull the metal bars very far out of the door through that hole. Needle nose pliers can help you align the metal rod end to get it into the receptacle. But sometimes you just end up doing this blind. It's a bit of an acquired skill. Don't get frustrated right away. You'll figure it out.

If you want to know what it's supposed to look like, gently unhook the passenger side rear door paddle out of the main door trim and you can see how things are supposed to be attached.

You can buy replacement clips if one has broken.

Just don't force the lock mechanism if it won't turn.

Apologies for an awful description of what needs to be done. I'm sure you can find something of superior quality somewhere on the internet. It's a common occurrence with older cars

Thank you derf for the very thorough explanation of the problem with my door’s lock!

Sorry for such a late reply, but I wanted to let you know that using your suggestions, I was able to fix the door and it currently works as good as knew. You were right, it was quite tricky, but I kept at it and somehow it came together!

I appreciate your help, so thanks again!

Thanks for coming back and letting derf and the rest of us know that you got it fixed. A LOT of people come here, ask for help and never return with a follow up.