[duderonomi]

'06 Forester XT
Back passenger side door won't open. Think it got slammed too hard, after that it only opened from the inside. In a Mensa move by me, I pushed down the parental lock button inside the door to see if that would change something. It did - I'm no longer able to open it from the inside.
Anyone have any ideas of how to fix this? My guess is I would have to take the interior of the door off from inside the car. Is this even possible?
Feel free to nominate me for one of those Darwin Awards books.
Thanks

 

[bellatech]

Can't you just open the door and disengage the child lock? Or did you push it in (essentially breaking it) and no longer have access? In that case you are taking off the door panel.

 

[flstffxe]

You could go for the door card removal or you could spend 20 minutes trying to undo the child lock like we did with a friends '05 Impreza he bought this winter. Neither of the rear doors would open inside or out. He was told the child safety locks had been in use due to the previous owner having young kids and one day the drivers side door would not open from the out side. So the owner left it and just used the passenger side door until that door did the same thing.

In looking at my '08 you should be able to do the same thing. With the window down as far as it will go you can sneak a metal coat hanger between the door seal and the door jam. I think I still have that coat hanger out in the garage. If I do I will post pics of how it was bent. You need one for each side.

 

[flstffxe]

I do still have the one we made for the drivers side. The pics probably show it better then I can describe it.

In the 3rd pic there is little jog bent into the coat hanger, this was done so it would push against the door jam to hold the hook portion against the door.

The fourth pic you can see there is also a bend in the hook portion towards(into) the door. This is to hook into the top of the opening for the "child protection lock(CPL)" to help when pulling the hanger up to keep it in contact with the CPL.

The last 3 pics I used the rear driver door of my '08 to show how it worked.

In the fifth pic the CPL is in the locked position and the bend at the hook portion is just catching the opening for the CPL.

The sixth pic you can see how the bend at the hook really catches the opening for the CPL to hold it there.

The last pic shows where it is slipped past the door seal.

 

[flstffxe]

I should also note that in doing this to his car we did a number on the paint in that area of the door from moving the hanger around trying to feel for the CPL.

If I was doing it again I would sand the cut end of the hanger to make it smooth to the touch to help minimize the scratches.

None the less, it is in a otherwise unseen area of the car, we hit it up with touch up paint.