This issue began with my door not occasionally not opening when using exterior door handle and progressively got worse to the point it wouldn’t open at all and there was no tension at all in the handle itself.
I decided to take the entire door card off and stripped all the internals down to investigate and found what I thought to have been the issue (surprise surprise… it wasn’t)
After replacing the handle carrier mechanism, I tested the door and to my frustration – no luck. The door still wouldn’t open and there was still no tension either when pulling the handle.
I then removed the inside of the door again to investigate the issue further and, upon closer inspection, I noticed the bowden cable connecting the exterior handle to the actuator was extremely stiff and when the handle was released, the cable did not return to it’s original position. This I thought must be it – I ordered the part and the following day repeated the above steps and replaced the cable.
And I’m sure you can guess where this is going… It still didn’t work. However! There was in fact now tension again when pulling the door handle which was progress.
For the 5th time that week, I disassembled the door again and inspected the only part I was yet to replace – the actuator. Visually, I couldn’t see anything wrong with the exterior and decided to take it apart and see if I could see anything suspicious with the internals.
I then spent an hour putting the actuator back together (which amazed me at how complex it was) and by process of elimination I decided to order a new actuator.
This arrived a couple of days later and, now for the 6th time, disassembled the door and installed the new actuator alongside the new bowden cable & door handle carrier. Now to test it.
The relief I felt when my door opened like clockwork with no issues at all (I think this feeling was mainly down to knowing I won’t have to take it apart for a 7th time now haha). I would attach a photo but, well, it will just be a picture of a car door so I will leave it this time.