Locked drivers door

[davewithington]

Last night the drivers door in my Xantia locked perfectly with the remote as usual, but won't unlock.

The passenger door unlocks with the key, and the rear doors unlock manually. I can't get the key into the drivers lock, and operating the inside door button makes all the others locks bounce, like when a door isn't quite shut.

Any ideas what's happened, and how do I open the door?

[Hell Razor5543]

I once had something similar with the offside rear passenger door. It locked happily from the central locking, but later I could not get it to open. After a while (a few days) I remembered something. I tried leaning firmly on the door while triggering the central locking (unlock) again. This time that door cottoned on to the fact that it should be unlocking. All I can think was that, when I had closed the door (and it was fully closed) I may not have closed it firmly enough, so something didn't quite catch properly. Now it was 'off' the locking system, but leaning on the door brought the problem to heel.

[davewithington]

I had considered that - I'll try that later, but I fear I have a broken wire to the unit in the drivers door.

[Paul-R]

Have you tried locking the car with a door deliberately not closed properly? Sometimes trying to lock and then the solenoids springing back can shock the reluctant mechanism enough.

[davewithington]

Right - door lock problem sorted and fully functional once more.

I managed to loosen the door card enough for me to disconnect the small rod linking the lock barrel and the lock itself. When I flipped it upwards, mimicing unlocking with a key, the deadlock disengaged so I could open the door. I'd already ordered a couple of those Chinese barrels so I popped one into the passenger door, transferring the original barrel from there to the driver's door - that way even though I have a lock which needs its own key, at least the drivers side now opens with the same key as the ignition lock.

OK.....I can now unlock the divers door. However, the remote when operated only lock the drivers door and boot, the other three doors remain unmoved. The passenger door though must be locked manually first. As it appeared the locks had gone out of sync, I tried a few things, but the synchronisation was only restored after locking all four doors manually, then operating the deadlocks with the remote. Normal service was restored immediately.

I reckon the door locked itself initiallybecause of wear in a hings pin allowing the door to drop a little way, about 5mm, thereby putting tension on the lock. I had oredered new hinge pins funnily enough an was going to fit them over the Christmas holiday.