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2001 grand prix gt door problem

D

DarkLord

New member
My son's 2001 Grand Prix GT, 3800 series motor is acting up again.

The driver's side door won't stay closed. You can open it without
using the handle, just by pulling on the door frame. It will fly open
by itself on sharp curves at any decent speed.

What's the most likely cause for this? The other doors are working
fine, power locks/windows ect, no problems there.

The double bar piece is still attached to the inside of the frame,
where the door sets, I guess that's some kind of latch. He can't
lock it with the key either, or manually. When you press the
door button for lock, you can hear it make a sound, but it just
acts like there's nothing there when you push the door shut, no
click or anything that sounds like its engaging.

Figure we'll have to pull the door panel to try and see what's
going on, but was hoping for some pointers from anyone who
might have already went through this.

Thanks a lot gang! :)
 


open the door look at the latch is it open? like the slit for the door pin to slide in? if your not sure check the other known working door. if the latch is closed, pull the door handle and pull the latch back down with a screw driver.

if the latch part is moving freely it may have broke some how. you would then need to take the inside door panel off then un hook the linkage bars and replace the latch, it unscrews from the out side door jam, you can see the screws looking back at you.
 
Sounds to me like the door latch has gone bad. Replace it with the nicest salvage unit you can find, would be my suggestion. It is not a super easy task to swap it, but not extremely difficult either. The part you mentioned, the double bar, is called the striker. The latch inside the door is what needs to be replaced. Any staying shut issues means toss the old latch.
 
Oh- one more thing... double check to be sure the inside handle rod is not binding. If the handle operates freely this is probably not the case, but once the trim panel is off you can visually inspect that. If the rod sticks, the latch might think you're pulling on the door handle just a little. Seen that happen. If that and the lock rod move freely, its the latch.
 
ive not seen mine in person but if its like every other GM car or truck the metal rods clip in place with a plastic clip deal, they break, the rod falls off.

they can fall off the door handle, inside or out side end, or the strike plate. or all the linkage may be fubared. need to check it all out.
 
Hey guys, thanks for all the great advice (as usual).

What we finally wound up doing was going to a local junkyard and picking
up an entire used door for $100. The actuator/latch, was priced to us for
$115, so since the door is a heckuva lot easier to change, we just did that.

It was from an older model though (98) and the wiring harness was different.
The older door had 2 plugs while his car had a single large plug with a lock.

We just pulled the harness's from both doors and swapped them out. It's
annoying, but it really wasn't that bad.

Thanks again!

PS I checked RockAuto and it looks like we could have beaten that price,
but then we would have had to wrestle with putting it in, which everyone
said was not easy.
 
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