I'm still locked out help?!

Rango

Rango

Regular Member
American Zeds
Joined
Dec 15, 2025
Points
13
Location
Oklahoma
Model of Z
2.8 Roadster
My driver side door will not open no matter what I try I've managed to get the door panel off and I can manually unlock the door and move the linkages connected to the door handles, but still no luck any help would be greatly appreciated climbing over into the passenger seat to get out is no fun..
 
Have you tried pushing the door, firm and constant, from the outside whilst somebody pulls the leaver from the inside? That's you usual trick.
 
Yes I had, but it still wont open it seems as if the hook that catches the striker plate is the problem but I have no idea how to get it to manually release
 
Is the door not unlocking or looking through central locking?

If not the latch may still deadlocked if so that may cause some issue to open.

Make sure its definitely not jamming as Andy said as if deadlocked may be difficult to get open without force.

Stephen.
 
In your older post on this you mentioned that the driver's door key barrel just spins.

See this picture. In the lower right corner you see the two levers.

Screenshot_20260204-205629_Chrome.webp


Now I will confess that I'm not 100% sure about what I'm saying here. It's a few years since I had my locks out and memory isn't what it used to be.

The small lever, the one with the little round hole, is what, IIRC, the key barrel connects to via a rod.

I don't know what would happen if your spinning barrel caused the rod to disconnect from that lever and/or jam that lever into it's locked position.

As I said, I'm not sure. But you have the door cards off so it won't cost you anything to stick your fingers back there and twiddle that lever.
 
I’ve messed with it already and I think the actuator is functioning to my knowledge because I can here it click when I manually lock and unlock the door.
 
I also want to add.

Look at the bigger lever in that picture. The one sticking out of the bottom. When you pull the outside door handle it pulls that lever.

There's a wierdo in the way the lock works where if that big lever has not returned to its rest position the the lock becomes Deadlocked. There's springs that are supposed to pull that lever back to its rest position but weak spring or muck can stop it.

Get your fingers back there and make sure that big lever is pushed back as far as it'll go. (ie in the direction of towards the inside of the car)

When deadlocked everything sounds like its clicking correctly but still deadlocked.
 
I can move that larger lever both to the interior and exterior of the door but nothing really changes
 
The only thing I can think of without getting too destructive would be to get to the striker bolts itself and cut or drill them out so the striker mechanism comes out with the door and then I could have enough room to get a screwdriver in a pry it up but the question then is how do I get to those bolts?
 
This post by @spurs fan in a coupe might be of some help ?

zroadster.org

How To Guide - Open deadlocked door (Z3)

Been a while since I did one of these. Problem = passenger door (RHD) wouldn’t open. Inner and outer handles would move, inner one would lift the locking door pin at the top of the door card, but it didn’t make the electronic/ sliding noise that it should. This posed a problem as it was on...
zroadster.org zroadster.org

By the way, I am not suggesting that you do this to your door but the photos do give you a good idea of the parts inside the door.

1770256331376.png

​
Right, I am back off to bed .... 💤
 
Its good to see what's in there and I already have a spare actuator that I used to see how it works but still no luck.
 
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