Rear Door Won’t Unlock

[Cronky]

Hey all, I’m a new member, but I really hope someone can help with this as I’ve searched high and low for an answer and couldn’t find one, even the garage, who carried out the MOT and failed it, weren’t sure exactly what the problem was. The irony of it all is I rarely use the rear doors/back seats so didn’t even think to check before it went in for its MOT.

Car Details:
Saxo 1.1 Forte 2000 5 door

Problem:
As the title says, the driver’s side rear door won’t unlock. When you pull the lock, it moves a little bit, but doesn’t seem to fully unlock. The handle works OK so I don’t think it’s that and points to something to do with the locking mechanism.

So far I’ve remove the rear door panel and I can feel the rod moving when I lift the lock button, but doesn’t seem to fully unlock as there isn’t a nice ‘click’ like the rear passenger side. Part of the problem is I can’t see where the rod attaches to the lock, so I’m just doing it by feel, but I’ve as yet had no luck.
Has anyone had a similar issue and know what the problem is?

Any help would be massively appreciated and thanks in advance.

[stevo67]

Metal control rod has probably come off,get a torch & a mirror you'll see how it all works.

[aldred309uk]

One trick I use for looking in tight spaces is to get your phone, turn the camera on and record a video with the flash on. You can place the end of the phone with the camera on it into the door area and with it recording video with the light on you get a live view on the screen and it's all lit up. Just delete the video afterwards because they rltend to be quite boring lol

[Cronky]

Thanks stevo & aldred, I'll try the phone trick, although there isn't a lot of room.

A quick update, I managed to get my arm right to the back and with a bit of fiddling, I got the door open, but when I closed it again I was back to square one so maybe its the latch and not the lock?

I'm going to have another look this afternoon and I'll report back.

Thanks again

[davesaxdiesel]

How did you manage to remove the door panel ?

It doesn't appear to be removable with the door shut.