I'm not sure what's going on here, but my exterior passenger door handle will not open the door. It's the standard push button door handle.

I took off the door panel, and noticed that the push rod on the push button is sliding between latch, and a hinge or something.

Obviously something is not lined up but I can't seem to move anything on the interior latch to get it to line up.

Any idea's? I guess I could try replacing the exterior handle, but I don't think that's the issue.

 

The short rod on the back of the pushbutton may be bent.

Take the handle off the door and look at it, then look in the hole and see where it's supposed to go, and see if you need to bend it slightly to hit its target.

- Eric

 

I took the door handle off and bent the push rod so that it makes contact. The problem is that the push rod rotates in the handle so after a few opens it falls back to where it misses.

I'll keep investigating it but may try with a new door handle.

 

I know that the door handles of the different years and models all look the same, but that some are actually very different - I've only seen buttons where the pushrod was stationary and couldn't rotate.

It is possible that the rotation is the problem.

- Eric