Door latch/lock issues

[Redletter1]

ok, ive poked around online and i cant find anything to help. maybe someone here has some ideas.

my2011 has 7200 miles on it. has been in for warranty covered service a dozen times. half of those have been from the interior door latch handle malfunctioning. seriously i have to take it back for service on this door latch issue every 800-900 miles.

it has happened on both door but more frequently on the drivers side due to that door getting more use.

how this plays out is i will park and when i go to open the door to exit the vehicle the latch/handle will not have any tension. as i pull it to open the door i can tell its not "grabbing" what ever it should be grabbing.

at this point i will start to lock and unlock the door until it finally "grabs" or engages what ever it should be engaging and then it will work. at this point it will work well for say 50 door openings. then it will happen again and work well for say 40 openings. then 30, 20, 10 and eventually it not work at all and i will need to roll my window down so i can open the door using the exterior latch. once i had to crawl to the passengers side and exit that door.
im 5'9" and 210lbs so crawling through a lotus isnt easy...to boot i was on a date and dressed to the nines. nice and stiff.

i was told last time that they found i had i missing pendulum or something similar to a pendulum that was missing from a door latch campaign that was completed when the car had 22 miles on it. i bought at 36 miles. apparently the pendulum was left out when it should have been reinstalled and we were pretty convinced that the issue had finally come to an end and lotus of orlando installed the missing pendulum. happy days!

well low and behold ive been locked in the car twice this week.

anyone? anyone have ideas?

its a simple annoyance but my issue it that getting trapped in the car during an accident etc would be huge.

also id like to ad that this door issue has been to both dimmitt (back when dim mitt serviced lotus) and aston martin of orlando. the original campaign was serviced in jacksonville and world imports.

[West-of-Hethel]

The latch handle connects to a cable, which in turn connects to the latch mechanism.

At the handle end of the cable, there is a crimped-on, L-shaped component that fits into a hole in the handle. The L is retained in the hole by a small plastic piece.

Symptoms you are describing can be caused by the small plastic retainer failing to hold the cable end in position. It will gradually walk its way out of the handle, until the handle ends up connected to nothing at all.

Alternately, it may be nothing more than an adjustment to the cable that is needed. The handle end of the cable has a typical double-nut adjustment (think of a bicycle control cable) to keep tension. If this is adjusted too slack, the cable will initially function at the limit of handle travel, but will eventually work itself loose and walk out of the handle as above.

Either way it's an easy fix. Buy the manual (less than $10 online), spend a few minutes removing the door panel, and the cable will be staring you in the face. Adjust as required, or if the retainer is broken/missing, substitute a zip tie. Permanent fix, and probably quicker than the drive to the dealer.

Now, if you are saying that the door fails to open from the inside or outside, then that's got to be a problem with the latch, and you can disregard the above.

[Plackslayer]

Have your dealership call another one to repair it properly.

[Ron Avery]

Symptoms you are describing can be caused by the small plastic retainer failing to hold the cable end in position. It will gradually walk its way out of the handle, until the handle ends up connected to nothing at all.


if the retainer is broken/missing, substitute a zip tie. Permanent fix, and probably quicker than the drive to the dealer.

I had a post about this a while ago. I had my driver side hadle and retainer clip replaced under warranty. The dealer also used a zip tie with the replacement parts, just to be sure it would stay together. That was around 6 months ago, all is still well.
Ron