Passenger door won't open!

May 19, 2024 3:01 PM

I have a 2019 Ford Ecosport and suddenly out of nowhere, the driver-side passenger door will not open. It will unlatch, and I can force it open an inch or so, but it's behaving like the car was in an accident, and it was not. The other doors are all fine. Window rolls up and down fine. This happened after it was sitting in a public parking lot for 2 hours. Careful visual inspection shows nothing awry. I suppose I could get in the back seat and apply a ton of force by pushing with my legs but I'm leery of breaking it (more). Any ideas or sharing of experiences with this issue much appreciated!
posted by Stupidsexyflanders_take2 to Travel & Transportation (5 answers total)

Something like this happened to me, though with a much older car. I managed to get the door to open eventually, but then it wouldn't close, which was far worse. The issue was with the lock rod inside the door. Wasn't expensive to get fixed.
posted by rodlymight at 5:26 PM on May 19 [2 favorites]

When this happened to my partner's car door, I took it to the dealer. The linkage or something was broken and they ordered a replacement. It took a few days. Ironically the same thing has just happened to my car, another Ford.
posted by dragonplayer at 4:30 AM on May 20

This happened to the driver's side door on my 2010 Nissan Rogue. it was a mechanical issue inside the door that no amount of force would have fixed. I was able to fix it myself, but I cursed the universe before I was done.

I had to unscrew basically everything I could get to from the inside, carefully pry the panels off, then activate the mechanism from the inside to open the door. I found a broken piece on the door handle inside the door and that was something I could buy at the auto parts store. The thing was, I could only access it by removing the linkage assembly. And once I had that off, it wasn't within my skillset to get it back on. I ended up having to replace the entire assembly. It wasn't expensive, but it wasn't in stock at the auto parts place, so I had to order it. My car was useless for a few days, and then it came and I had to spend another day putting that in and reassembling the door.

I "saved money" doing it myself, but I would have paid three times what it cost to have had someone do it for me in a day instead of it being a nagging weeklong issue.

TL;DR: recommended tool for fixing this is a credit card.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:05 AM on May 20 [7 favorites]

Had the same issue with an older Toyota Sienna. Thankfully(?), the plastic clips that hold the interior portion of the door had failed and the dealer replaced them for free.
posted by fellion at 9:33 AM on May 20

If you're going to take the door apart yourself, I would recommend first picking up some flavor of door panel tool & fastener kit. Having the proper (or closer to it) tools for popping the panels loose will reduce the chances of breaking those little plastic clips, and you'll also have a few extras in the (quite likely, in my experience) case that you break a couple. Plastics can get brittle with age, and even with proper care in removing them, they can still break.
posted by xedrik at 11:52 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]