Drivers door not latching - any advice?

[Juddder]

So it's officially almost the first day of Spring and time to get the Cerbera out - and the drivers door decides that the latch doesn't want to catch / lock for some reason.

Any advice on how to take it apart / check that it latches correctly?

The passenger door I can lock the latch with a pen, and then unlatch it with the open door button just fine, it's just the drivers that even when trying to latch it with a pen, it never catches.

BTW from my alternative parts list it says the replacement is a Vauxhall part, but another thread I checked was saying that the part was now unavailable.

Would prefer not to fall out the door tomorrow when taking it for a sunny day spin :-)

[dswiscrazy]

I don't know if I'll be any help when my boot lid was doing the same. It was the spring in the mechanism

[anonymous-user]

I dont know if you got in via the super secret hush hush route, whenever Ive had to use it, after opening the door I had to ease the seat belt trim panel enough to get my hand in to jiggle the cable back to the right position so it would lock.

[FarmyardPants]

When mine did this it was the 3 Allen bolts holding the catch plate were loose. How I used to slam that door and curse, lol

Sorry didn't read the original post closely enough. Sounds like the cable that operates the catch is sticky.

Edited by FarmyardPants on Saturday 1st March 21:46

[Jhonno]

Yeah, as above, check the emergency pulls are properly returned..

[Tarmacshredder]

I had this problem last year and mine was the lug that the spring that returns the metal arm on the back of the lock had snapped off. As the arm wasn't returning the lock wouldn't catch, the 2 cables if not returned for the emergency overrides would produce the same fault as they would not be allowing the arm to return. As I was going to a show the following day in it a zip ties was used to secure the spring to something so that it would return as a temp fix.

[Juddder]

Thanks everyone for the advice - off to the garage to check...

Sounds like the emergency cable pull might not be returning as suggested, so I'll start with that and some WD40 and then move to taking apart the latching mechanism.

Will report back how I get on

[Juddder]

SOLVED

Thanks everyone - during the Winter hibernation I must have released the emergency door cable at some point as this hadn't returned to the correct position and was forcing the lock not to latch.

Interestingly visible inspecting it it _looked_ like it had returned fine, but must have just been a little out, stopping the latching.

Spraying with WD40 and manually adjusting means it now all latches correctly again - one to note in case it catches anyone else out...