So I went to work today and when I went to shut my door it didn't latch and it flew back and almost hit my friends mercedes parked next to it (whoops). Upon closer examination, the part where the door latches is in the position I imagine it's in when its shut, but the door is wide open. So basically I can't get it to shut and I had to tape the bajesus out of it to drive home. Anybody know what's causing this or what I can do to fix it? Thanks!
Make sure the door is unlocked and left up on the handle to see if the latch moves if not. Take a flat head screw driver and put at the bottom of the latch towards bottom of the door. Pull up on the door lever from the outisde and at the same time push the latch up towards the window and see if it pops free.
glad to hear atleast you didn't have to drive with the door taped shut. did that way work or did u do it a different way
Haha yea can't say I miss the tape, especially since it took me like 30 minutes to clean off the residue with denatured alcohol once I pulled it all off
But yea I just sprayed it with some WD-40 and pulled the inside door handle while just kinda wiggling a screwdriver around in there haha. It looks like it's moving ok now so atleast I know what I gotta do if it ever does this again, thanks again for the help.
We had that same issue with our old '96 Z-24. The problem is GM used regular steel springs in the door latch rather than stainless steel. The springs rust up real bad and the latch quits working. We were on our 3rd door latch when we sold the car after 5 years of owning it. The best thing I found to make them last more than a couple years was to pack grease in the latch assembly before installing it. That was on a new latch assembly. You can take the original rusted up latch and spray it with WD and work the latch with it in your hand and then pack it with grease once you get it loosened up. It'll last another year that way. Both the drivers & passenger latch's will fail with the drivers latch going first. That's usually the side of the car that the doors rust out first so I figured it was the salt spray from on coming traffic getting that side of the car washed down with more salt than the passenger side. A clue as to pending door latch failure is noticing the feel of it unlatching when you lift the handle outside the car. A new latch will have a crisp feeling to it and a rusted latch will feel kind of mushy. Compare the feel of the passenger side latch with the drivers side and you will notice a definite difference. The latch's are junk and never should have made it to production.
Mike
'06 Redline Ion Competition
'97 Saturn SC-2
