New shite beetle door won't open = £££'s lots

[stripped fred]

My girlfriend took her 56 plate beetle in for it's mot and service today. It's a garage she's used for a few years now and she's had no problems with them. The bill for an MOT, service, 4 tyres and brakes was £650 which I think is a bit high but I've not seen the invoice yet. I've told her I will take over the servicing from now on. However, the problem is with the passenger door. It has been reluctant to open for a while needing a few tries. As it's a convertible the window goes down a bit as you open the door. It now won't open at all. In hindsight it should have been looked at before it failed completely. The garage say they can't get it open but will try again next week. If they can't open it they will have to break it open resulting in a new door. She's also been told that even when they can get it open the part is £180+labour+vat. I'm sure there must be some way round this but just wanted to know if anyone else has any idea how to open it?

[fordperv]

I've just done a quick Google, it might be worth trying

 

http://www.justanswer.com/vw-volkswagen/5nurr-vw-beetle-cabriolet-the-passenger-door-window-regulator-door-panel.html

 

http://www.justanswer.com/vw-volkswagen/1zl8s-volkswagen-passanger-door-won-t-open-central-locking-wont-open.html

I've never messed with one so I can't say whether it will work or not

[John F]

Worst case scenario? Butcher the door card to get to the rods that activate the lock/latch mechanism.

 

I can't imagine a replacement door card would cost more than 15-20 quid from a breakers.

[purplebargeken]

The windows drop on all of them. Cabrio doors are no different to ordinary ones. Tons in breakers.

 

Door cards are easy. T20 thingy will be your friend. I took mine out to fix the erratically operating speaker. 

[dieselassist]

i had a similar problem on ma'assist's mk4 golf; rear door... the outside door handle wasn't functioning (the tester at the NCT pulled it like a caveman n broke it) ...added to this the child lock was on, randomly....

 

Long story short; taking off (ie butchering) the inner door card, didn't prove advantageous at all - I ended up destroying the remains of the outer door handle to get at the cable thing' that operates the latch - at the end of the cable is a plastic grooved thingame, that slots into some groves in the doorhandle - the groves wear down over time n fail to grip the cable bit.... once the door handle was destroyed/removed I used grips to pull the cable... got a replacement rear door handle off a mate for €5 n fitted it...

 

Ive not had the same misfortune with front doors, thankfully...

[Jim Bell]

[twosmoke300]

If you keep trying / thumping and pulling handles / locks they usually open once .

Did they pass the mot ? Shouldn't have done if you couldn't open the door

[stripped fred]

Thanks for the advice. This is a great site for good, straight talking, practical help. I've read the links in the earlier post and there are a few YouTube videos I'll watch. She's doing the usual woman thing of being a bit hysterical, it's the end of the world etc. She's decided to get pissed. Seems to think a new door card would be £300 which I doubt. Kicking myself a bit for waiting for it to fail totallly but there you go, hindsight is great.

 

One of the links says you can remove the card with the door closed but it doesn't look easy. Another bloke reckons you can make a tool out of a coat hanger and insert it through the gap in the door handle. I know how my Saturday will be spent

[Hertz]

Exactly the same thing happened with my wife's beetle (06 plate). Failed the mot on pass door not opening. There is a 'reset' instruction somewhere in case its an ECU fault causing it but alas it was the door lock knackered on ours. Think the garage quoted us 250 plus fitting but in the end he did it for 150 cash as he managed to get the part a lot cheaper. The part was Vw only though so not sure how he did it. Thing is all the workarounds coat hanger etc will do to get the door open but won't be a permanent fix will it. In my opinion you just need to bite the bullet and replace it. We ended up toe dropping the beetle onto someone else and got a polo as other things were starting to go wrong.

 

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

[stripped fred]

Exactly the same thing happened with my wife's beetle (06 plate). Failed the mot on pass door not opening. There is a 'reset' instruction somewhere in case its an ECU fault causing it but alas it was the door lock knackered on ours. Think the garage quoted us 250 plus fitting but in the end he did it for 150 cash as he managed to get the part a lot cheaper. The part was Vw only though so not sure how he did it. Thing is all the workarounds coat hanger etc will do to get the door open but won't be a permanent fix will it. In my opinion you just need to bite the bullet and replace it. We ended up toe dropping the beetle onto someone else and got a polo as other things were starting to go wrong.

 

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

Thanks for that. I now have more accuarte info from the partially pissed other half. They have tried resetting the ecu but to no avail and have diagnosed a broken motor. Quoting £136 for the part then labour on top and still no wiser on how to get the door open but will give it another go next week. It has failed the mot on this. Sounds like the same problem you had. I've had a look at the invoice and the other work sounds reasonable for a garage. Tires were £71 each for 4x Kumho's which isn't the end of the world. I could have saved a few quid on this but was convenient. Also had discs and pads at the front, MOT, service and 1 1/2hrs messing about with the door. At the end of the day cars do cost you money. She's spent nothing on it in the last 12 months so it's all come at once. I will do the servicing ans sort the mot next year though to keep the costs down as it is a 9 year old car now.

[Vince70]

I had a tin top new beetle which had a similar problem and it would take three or four attempts to pull on the outer door handle to open it and the lock in the handle was very loose and I had to tighten it up about once or twice a week..

 

I was lucky as I sorted mine out before it completely failed and the problem was there was a lug which had broken off the casting on the back of the door handle so I bought a complete handle off eBay for a tenner and just used the casting as the handles are colour coded so I changed the lock and the outer cover over and it worked a treat..

 

Another favourite is the Windows and remote locking packing up due to a door control module on the beetle but if you buy a cheap one secondhand I think a golf mk IV has the same component and generally I found when buying bits for the new beetle if you can get away with using the same parts off another Vag motor it was generally cheaper secondhand as the beetle styling tends to bump the price up a bit..

[oldcars]

80 CASH 2NITE MATE

[Station]

Mini has similar problems with door locks and speakers. A thump to the door fixes them.

Surely a scrapyard raid would produce the bits you need.

[stripped fred]

Spent a couple of hours trying to get the door open today and when I was about to throw in the towel it opened which i was well chuffed about. The method was me pulling on the door handle outside while pushing at the mechanism inside the door with a metal ruler while my son pulled on the inside door handle and continually pressed the remote.

 

I removed the door card and shut the door again and it now seems to have fixed itself. My girlfriend still thinks it needs to go to the garage for a new 'motor'. I've convinced her to see how it goes for a bit. From what I've read online it's more likely to be the latch not releasing properly. I plan to investigate further tomorrow. I'm happy to replace parts from a scrapper if needed but at the moment I'm not too sure what I should replace, if anything?

[Tamworthbay]

Strip it and clean it out as a first stop

[Pillock]

Take the door card off and just observe as much as possible when someone pulls the door handle - anything loose, anything that is only just catching a latch or something. Could he worth taking the drivers side off and comparing.

[twosmoke300]

Door locks for most vw s are about 20 each of eBay . Seem to last ok

[Station]

Strip it and clean it out as a first stop

 

And then go outside and fix the door.

[BorniteIdentity]

Me pulling on the door handle outside while pushing at the mechanism inside the door with a metal ruler while my son pulled on the inside door handle and continually pressed the remote.

 

Wow. Word for word what it says in the Haynes Manual.

[Station]

While waiting for a buyer to turn up today, I thought I'd try the Mini door lock.

FUNK ME! What a pain that was. The lock closes on the fob, but it won't open - first time I fixed it, put everything back together again - none of the locks worked, argh.

Second time, got everything back together it worked! Closed the door, locked it, unlocked it - it didn't work. POO.

The only thing that doesn't work properly on this car.