Back two doors

SHAYMPAT33

MEMBER
2003 DODGE DURANGO
5.9L
230,000 MILES

We purchased this vehicle recently. The previous owner said the back two doors will not open, due to lack of use. We pried the door panel back as much as possible with the door still shut. Nothing is broken. There is some rust on the door lock mechanism. Everything moves when prompted, but the door acts like it is locked when you pull on the handle.

1 Reply

STEVE W.

MECHANIC
13,471 POSTS

Spray the door latch with some penetrating oil like Kroil or PBlaster. If they have not been used in a long time they are likely rusted internally. It may take a while to get them to open as the actual latch pawl is on the top area of the latch and difficult to get lubrication into.

You may want to try having one person pulling on the outer handle enough to ensure the latch is open and then have someone else push on the inside of the door hard to see if you can overcome the rusty latch. Doing it this way may get the doors open, but you may want to go to a salvage yard and get replacement units first, if the originals are rusted internally the springs are probably bad and they may not re-latch.

I have torn a lot of these apart and rebuilt them because of rust. They can get very bound up because of the way they are made inside.