Rear door won't open from inside - easy to fix ?

[roblightbody]

Hi,

I am wondering if its easy to fix a back door that won't open from the inside? Works fine from the outside, as does the central locking.

Also is there a good topic on here already that deals with how to get the trim off?

Thanks!

- Rob

[Crasher]

Stupid question first, are you sure the child lock is not on?

[roblightbody]

Stupid question first, are you sure the child lock is not on?

I did check this! I moved it into both positions and it doesn't make a difference. I've never deliberately adjusted the child locks before that though.

Thanks.

[Crasher]

Just thought I would check. Does the resistance to the pull handle feel the same as the other side.

[roblightbody]

Just thought I would check. Does the resistance to the pull handle feel the same as the other side.

It feels like its not doing anything at all - on the other side you can feel and hear the mechanism moving..

[Crasher]

If it is a very early Golf 6 i.e. pre mid 2009 then the Bowden cable from the handle to the lock mechanism was prone to snapping, a new cable is £11.89.

[roblightbody]

If it is a very early Golf 6 i.e. pre mid 2009 then the Bowden cable from the handle to the lock mechanism was prone to snapping, a new cable is £11.89.

Thanks for that. Its a June 2012 car, so towards the end of mk6 production I think. Is it something that is do-able by an amateur?

[Crasher]

It is a big job, it takes a seasoned pro two hours to do as removing the inner reinforcement panel involves disconnecting the glass from the lifter unit and getting the lock unit out to refit the new cable means extracting the lock unit and that means disconnecting the handle pull cable and that job can be an utter sketch alone. You can come across two forms of inner door panel retention, with 11 plastic spreader rivets where you slide a forked steel tool under the centre of the rivet and lever it out (try not to ruin them as they are £2 each... however, you could be unlucky and find that instead of the plastic rivet, they have used the aluminum and steel pop rivet so all 11 have to be drilled out and then replaced with the special rivet N 911 895 01 (again about £2 each) and these from memory have a very thick shank which needs a BIG rivet gun or you can replace them with the plastic rivet 5K0 837 975 A (5K0 shows it was designed for the Golf 6 and indeed never used on anything else, why design a special plastic rivet? On the Golf 4 it was an M6 bolt, ohh sorry, money!).

I did the rear door lock unit on a Golf 5 last week (the same unit but door skin off) and the handle blanking plug nearly drove me to distraction, after only taking an hour to get apart and the new lock unit in, and less to rebuild, getting the plug to engage meant stripping the whole thing down again and ordering for the next day a new handle carrier, in all I spent 8 hours on it but could only charge the 2 I quoted. What was even more annoying was that I fully expected the problem because invariably this happens and I had ordered the part in anticipation but when I opened the sealed TPS box, it was broken… and many attempts to reuse the old one just meant having to remove the door skin again to retrieve the flipping locking ring… I hate the person who designed that! It is a shame I did not take any pictures of the Golf 6 rear door lock one of my chaps did a few weeks ago.

[roblightbody]

Hi Crasher,

Thanks very much for your detailed reply, which is very helpful!

I was trying to decide whether to try to fix this myself (no way hosay based on your reply) or ask my garage to do it (also no way, given the complexity) as I am planning to sell the car soon, and wanted to know just to tell the buyer about it, or get it fixed. Its never bothered me because nobody uses the back seat, in fact it was probably broken for ages before I noticed!