Hey, everyone, this is my first post in these forums

Okay then, here's the problem with my Volvo.
As I said in the title of the topic I have a 1998 S70 (left hand drive). The problem was (was, because I kinda solved it in a weird way) that I was not able to open my front passenger's side door from the outside (I was able to do to it from the inside though). So I removed the door panel and the whole lock assembly from my car using this quite useful tutorial I found on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LreeVUCemrw .

When I got out the door lock, I found a little plastic ring/tube there that moves up and down in a little curved groove. When the ring is in a downward position the door can be opened from the outside, but when it is in an upward position, the door cannot be opened from the outside. So, when the central lock is used on the remote that little ring moves into the upward position thus locking the doors, like it should be.

Now I finally get to my real problem. In my case that little plastic ring doesn't go back into downward position after I unlock my doors using the remote, it stays in that upward position thus making the door unopenable from the outside.

I would like to ask if anyone has ever had the same kind of problem with their car and would be able to help me? Maybe I should just buy a new door lock, or maybe it isn't such a big problem? I didn't want to open the door lock itself - there weren't any screws, everything was held together with rivets.

This little plastic ring is quite small, but anyway I pointed it out in a screenshot I made of the YouTube video, it can be seen here http://www.hot.ee/jaak170/door_lock.jpg .

Right now I temporarily solved the problem this way that I unplugged the two central locking cables from the door lock and left the plastic ring in the downward position.
The door is at least openable from the inside and the outside, but I cannot lock it in any way, it just stays always opened.

Any help would be very welcome.

Thanks in advance.
Jaak from Estonia

 

Do you have a picture of the door lock. It may help you get a response.

 

You cannot get parts seperate. Usually you need to buy a new lock assembly.

 

I uploaded a few photos of the lock. First two show the groove with its so-called ring.

1. http://www.hot.ee/jaak170/door1.jpg
2. http://www.hot.ee/jaak170/door2.jpg
3. http://www.hot.ee/jaak170/door3.jpg

 

I just had the same issue. You really can't repair it.

I got a used Door lock actuator which fixed the problem. 20 minutes out, 15 minutes in.

Passenger side front door works fine. New they are $125 from the dealer. I got mine on ebay for about $35.

 

Well, that's kinda bad news and good news at the same time

Sorry, but English isn't my native language. Can you explain me what is this "actuator" and where it is located?

 

It's the whole lock/ latch assembly that needs to be changed. The actuator is part of that, but you can't replace parts separately... believe me, I tried my damndest to do it a couple times, and I'm usually really good at fixing things like that