Prius 2010 Door won't open/ door won't close

Doors exhibiting the behavior you describe are obviously broken. Take it to the dealer, reproduce the problem, and they will fix it.

 

Warrantee will cover it. Don't wait.

 

No, Mr. 1 post - no.

-Brad

 

Actually yes. Posted about this the other day. Sorry Brad.

Problem with driver side door twice. 1st time month or two ago - door would not close. Kept bouncing open like something was in the way or the latch dropped and was hitting the mechanism. Took several tries and it finally shut. Didn't pay enough attention then to remember if related to 2nd time.

Second time may have been car wash/freezing temps issue. Washed car in morning. Left for work at night and everything was OK until I got to work 10 minutes later. The driver side would not open. Messed with the electric lock button, FOB, and the manual lock. Crawled out passenger door. Driver door worked fine in morning and ever since.

If it happens again I may take it in.
oh yeah.. Can't say if any problems with passenger side door since its rarely used.

 

Resurrecting this thread for a nearly identical problem. The passenger side rear door of my wife's 2010 Prius was giving her some trouble closing while she was on a road trip with her extended family until one of the passengers slammed the door and now it won't open.

The lock actuator in the door sounds like it's working but neither the inside nor outside door handles open the door. It's unknown if the child lock is engaged but I think it unlikely.

I suspect that something inside the lock actuator body is broken but I haven't been able to find any way to get at it without having the door open.

Will unbolting the door from its hinges do me any good? I understand it's a pain to realign properly but that's a can of worms I'm willing to open if it'll help me fix the door. Thanks.

 

PARTIALLY SOLVED

I did some more research, kept tinkering, and now I have something to show for it.

After removing the two anchoring screws I was able to partially remove the interior door card by prying up and out on the top of the panel, starting from the rearmost edge and working my way forward. I then removed the rear seat bottom to grant some additional space to get at the panel but that step may not have been necessary. After getting the top lip of the panel clear of the sheet metal, I was able to forcefully pull the top half of the panel free enough to reach the cables for the interior door release. The door unlatched with a hearty tug on the cable, allowing me to open the door and properly remove the door card completely. Thankfully the child lock was not engaged else this would not have worked.

The problem now is that there is no problem. I've cycled the door latch several times and it operates normally from both the inside and outside handles. For the life of me I can't figure out what was keeping the door stuck before I managed to open it again. I'll continue to update this thread as I can but has anyone else had an issue like this before?