Volkswagen Passat B5 (2002) Passenger (front) door won't open from the inside nor the outside!

[VWPassatB5]

Hello everyone,

My dad and I have browsed countless of hours through forums, videos and search engines and I'm incredibly desperate right now. Is there any way we can solve this issue without completely breaking parts of the door open?

Problem:
Dutch Model (Drivers side is on the left, passenger side is to the right) Volkswagen Passat 2002 will not open from both the inside and the outside.

Elaboration:

1. Unlocking through the keyfob or the drivers panel on the inside will unlock all 3 other doors but not the front right door (the passenger door).
2. All we need to be able to do is to access the inside of the faulty door. Once inside, we can take a look and repair the lock or replace the lock if necessary.
3. We cannot access the inside of the faulty door as easily; this is a front door and not a rear door.
   
   1. If it were to be a rear door, we could access the inside of the door by screwing open everything from the inside. But in the case of a front door, the dash board is in front of the interior of the door and therefore we cannot access the lock itself from the inside.
   2. We can also not open the middle column (on which the seat belt is connected) as that is covered with the rubber seal, which is locked together with our faulty front door in
   
   
4. Our problem therefore is that we need to open the door itself in order to screw all components open from the inside. However, we cannot force the door open in any shape or way possible. The door will not unlock in whichever way we tried:
   
   1. Resetting the electrical computer by opening and closing the door sequentially many times. Reset occurred, faulty door still will not open, other doors function properly.
   2. The switch that people often refer to for opening doors in case of a dead lock (at the middle column close to the driver's seat) is missing for us, so we cannot utilize that either.
   3. Disconnect the battery, try to force it open manually:
      
      1. Hammer the inside/outside to force a component of the lock inside to move or fall in place.
      2. Spam lock and unlock the door plenty of times, attempt at opening it either from the inside or outside through the handle.
      3. On this model, you cannot access the physical key insertion on the outside of the door without actually opening the door either.

I apologize if I forgot to mention anything, but as you can see, we're in dire need of help. If in any way I could find a solution, I'll attempt at posting it clearly here as well.

Thank you in advance for all messages and we wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

[witblitz]

Hi, I had this exact problem also 2003 Dutch Model (drivers side is now starting to play up as well so I'll be pulling it apart when its a bit warmer).
In short you are able to strip the inside panels off the door whilst it is closed. This can be a little tricky if your not familiar with the process, there is an old post that I found in this forum which showed how to fix the lock of a golf 4 (basically the same process is applicable here). For me I bought a new lock for the Passat as I figured that would need to break the old lock to open the door. To my surprise when I get a screw driver into the area where the lock hooks onto the frame and applied some force the door popped open with no damage to the lock. Here is the link to what I posted shortly after doing the job. https://www.vwaudiforum.co.uk/forum/s...-not-unlocking
The problem with the lock is normally dry solder joints which can be repaired if your up for the task although I did not attempt the fix on the Passat lock it worked well on the Golf lock (same locking mechanism for both).