My wife was impatiently yanking on the passenger side door of my TDI while I activated the door locks. The door came open she got in, we did our errands and came home.
The next day I activated the locks, and when I deactivated them later the knobs all came up and everything looked and sounded OK, but the passenger side front door wouldn't open. I manually pulled on the knob, but still it wouldn't open. I tried closing and opening the locks but nothing seemed to work. All the other doors were fine.
I finally got the door trim off (not easy when the door is locked shut!), peeled back the vapor barrier and flipped the latch to the lock. The door opened and I thought "OK, so the latch got flipped while she was janking on the door... no problem". I opened and closed the door a couple of times to make sure, and then started to put the trim back on when I decided to try the lock. Sure enough, the door wouldn't open again, so I went back in, pushed on the interior latch, and the door popped open.
Any guesses as to what's wrong? Do I need to replace the actuator? I haven't pulled it out since I only have enough time to work on the thing about once a month. I know that just because the knob goes up and down doesn't mean that it's connecting with the latch.
tia,
terry solomonson