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Is there any way to get the door panel off without damaging it? I have a slimjim at home, but I don't know what the insides of the CL's door looks like, so I'm not sure where to pull. The outer door handle moves fairly freely and doesn't feel like it's catching on anything. THe inner handle does feel like it's catching, and I confirmed that the lever is at least attached to the chrome door handle, but it doesn't open the door. There's not a whole lot I can do with the tiny hole behind the door handle cover.
Are there any fuses or anything weird about this car that might have caused it, or did I just have bad luck with an actuator/door latch/lever that suddenly broke? I can't think of any way that this can be fixed without destroying the door panel.
Coming back to update this FINALLY after 4 long months of climbing in and out of the passenger door. I had previously yanked the door panel off and had been driving around without it. To get the panel off, I had to remove the speaker grille (luckily it's not part of the panel like most Hondas). Then I was able to grab onto it from the hole in the door panel that the speaker grille covers and yank super hard to pull/break some of the clips. Then I had to roll down the window to CAREFULLY pry the top part over the door where it goes down into the window slot. Basically a lot of pulling until the panel came off.
Fast forward to last weekend:
First, I ordered a new latch/lock assembly: Part number 72150-SY8-A01
I've attached a screenshot from the video in case it gets taken down:
Then I took a deep breath and called some friends over to help.
The first thing you need to do is look at the new lock assembly and figure out what the guy in the video is pointing to. There's a small slot that you can barely fit a thin pick into that faces the outside door handle. It's plastic against metal. In that slot is a tiny metal lever that you can push down with a pick. That manually unlatches the door latch mechanism and releases the door.
This slot is pretty impossible to see from the inside of the car, and it's even harder to get to. With the door panel off, we removed the outer door handle from the inside, which gave us better access to that slot from the outside of the car through the door handle hole. Then you just have to push the pick down into the slot to try to catch the lever and push it downward toward the ground to get it to unlatch the door. I tried for about 15 minutes with no luck, but my friend stepped in and somehow had it open in about 3 minutes. At that point, it was just a matter of replacing the lock assembly and getting the door panel back on.
If you are unable to open front door using the inside or outside handle, read on. If latch or outside handle fails, it can cause the door to NOT open using inside or outside handle. Instead of damaging a $475 door panel by prying it off, remove the other door panel to observe how the latch works and see how you can use a slim jim to slide down from outside the door to the outside handle release level on the door latch to release the latch. I just did this on a 2013 MDX drivers door with a failed outside door handle. Use the window track as I guide down to the latch release lever. Hope this helps someone.
11-24-2015, 07:03 AM
