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Door won't open, '87 Scirocco

The passenger door on my '87 16V Scirocco won't open.

When my son got in the car, the door shut, sounded normal, and all that. Drove home. He got out and tried to shut the door. It wouldn't close. It behaved like they do when the latch flips over. I looked at it with a flashlight and found that the latch wasn't flipped over, but there was a chunk of black plastic jammed in the mechanism. It looked like it had broken off from behind the actual latch. I pulled that out and tried the latch once by hand, to make sure that it would latch, and would also release when I pulled the outside trigger. It worked. I shut the door, and now it won't open. The lock button moves up and down and makes the expected sounds. When it's down, the inside pull lever and the outside trigger are disengaged, as usual. When it's up both do something which sounds like the latch should be opening, but it doesn't actually let go. The door doesn't open, and it feels like it's the latch engaged on the door jam pin.

Short of cutting something open to get in there, any ideas on how to get it to open so I can replace it?

- Bill

Reply to
William J. Leary Jr.
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Well, as I said, bits fell out of the latch mechanism itself before I shut the door. I'm pretty sure it's the latch. I've had a handle fail and know about the internal lever the handle trips. I've been thinking about tryin what you said anyway because (1) I've got another handle and (2) when I pull the handle trigger or the inside release something is happening. If it's just that, with the parts missing from the latch, the normal travel of the releases won't trigger it, perhaps getting in there and pushing it manually will do it.

On the other hand, I looked at it with a really bright light over the weekend and it appears that if I can get a flexable cutting cable, I can loop it behind the latch pin and cut that and it'll just open. Need a new latch pin, of course, and the latch is shot anyway so I'd need new ones of each, but I've got those too.

- Bill

Reply to
William J. Leary Jr.

I had a similar problem with my 95 Passat. I ended up cutting off the door handle. There is a latch inside that activates the latch which may release it. You'll have the chance to look at the mechanism and determine if you need just a new door handle (you've cut it off, so you'll need one anyway), or perhaps the entire latch. Be very careful not to cut anything else.

Reply to
LaM

You should be able to open the door from the inside by (carefully) removing the door card.

It will be hard to get at from the inside (vs from the outside with a handle removed) but you should be able to actuate the mechanism.

Once you get the door open you can remove the mech and handle a lot easier than cutting things off.

TBerk

Reply to
TBerk

I'll have to look at the other one (door or car, I've got three other Scirocco's), but I was pretty sure that a couple of those screws are behind the area now covered by the dashboard. Or did you mean something else by "door card" than what I'm thinking of as the upholstered inside of the door?

If I can get the panel off, I can reach it. I've done it with the panel off and the door closed a few times while I was installing power windows in one of the other ones. I'd disconnected the inside latch because I thought I had to run something under it., but it turned out it didn't have to be disconnected to do it.

I hope so. I'll give that a better look before I start drilling or cutting. Thanks.

- Bill

Reply to
William J. Leary Jr.

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