Yep. Same guy with the FSU problem. Fun day .....

I occasionally have problems opening he driver side door from the inside. The handle pulls free, but the door stays closed. I have to grab the door from someplace other than the handle and pull it tighter against the car, and then the handle will release it.

The dealership tool me there was a faulty part called the "Door Opener". Seems like this would impact both the outside handle as well as inside - but it does not. So it the issue the interior handle part assembly? I am seeing a unit online with number #39868047, but wasn't sure if this part they identified as failing - or it attached to another mechanism that has gone bad?

Has anyone run into this?

 

I would pop the door panel off and check to make sure the cable is in place. There is a cable that attaches to a plastic mechanism that snaps to the door panel. Pretty easy to get to and check before spending money. Sometimes they pop out with time. Is there 0 resistance when you pull the interior handle? Or do you still get the little "click" like the other doors?

 

Most of the time it opens just fine. In fact, when I took it to the dealership - we could not get it to happen after 10 min of trying. It seems to routinely occur after driving for a few minutes. The interior handle then pulls semi-loosely (just like if the door was still locked). The quick fix is to simply pull the whole door itself tighter against the car. Once I do this, the handle works and door opens.

How hard is it to pop off the door panel. Do the clips or plastic pins break easily. In the past I have had issues replacing interior panels on vehicles.

 

I attached a link for how to get the panel off. It's mostly just push in snaps. The cable he holds at 2:44 is the one you want to inspect. EDIT: I have not had issues with the plastic clips on my 2018, I would hope they are rated to last enough for you to not have problems. I can't speak to their quality though.

 

I pulled up the diagram for a look:

https://www.tascaparts.com/v-2014-vo...k-and-hardware

I am thinking that it is more of a latch-sticking issue that might be able to be fixed without taking the door apart. Since just pulling the door tighter to the car body seems to make it open cleanly, maybe there is a little bit of tension in latch. Will try spraying some WD40 in exposed latch mechanism.

 

Well, the lubricant did not do anything, so it looks pulling off the door panel is going be necessary.

There are two questions than have me perplexed on this:

1 - How is the problem is so easily remedied by pull the already-closed door a bit tighter against the car (some sort of outward, pushing tension relieved)?
2 - Why is it impossible to reproduce the behavior without driving the car around for a few minutes?

Regarding #2, note that I spent over 10 minutes trying to reproduce the problem by repeatedly closing, opening, locking, unlocking the door for the service tech. Worked without a single problem. But... drive around a bit, and the interior handle latch will routinely fail when trying to get out of the car. Originally, I was thinking vibrations / motion, but banging or shaking the door will not product the fail condition.

And, as per #1, simply pulling the door closed slightly tighter (with the handle of the armrest) will make the door open every time.

I realize this could all just point to a failed "door opener" parrt that was quoted by the dealership, but the behavior and fix is so subtle - it is driving me nuts.

 

Going to pop the door panel off this weekend to have a look. Based on the video included above, it seems as though much of the guts come out in one big piece.

As Dingus references above, I will be look at the internal handle cable (2.44 in video). Cannot be very loose, as it works *most* of time - before driving around a while.

Does anyone know if the opening mechanism for the outside handle versus inside is entirely different? Seems odd if that is the case. My thought would be they activate the same latch release mechanism.

 

OK. Have not pulled the panel off yet, but I did discover another clue regarding the nature of the problem. The behavior cannot be replicated when the window is down. With the typical hot / humid / soupy Summer weather in KC, there has been little impetus to drive around with the windows down. I noticed just today that interior driver door handle will *always* work with the window down. There is no way to get to fail.

This seems to point more toward a tension or positioning issue, right? The existence of the downed window glass inside the door is "pushing" one of the mechanisms into a workable position. Again, that would suggest the the latch mechanism is still fine, but something is out of place or loose when engaged from the inside handle at certain times.