my doors are very hard to close i was going to grease up the laches but i was wondring is there any thing else i should do first

 

please give more information.

is it the hinges that are sticking/draging?
do you have to lift the door to make it close smoothly?
is it only the latch that will not grab the door and allow it to become ajar?
try and be as specific as possible. we are not there to see or touch your car first hand so your language really does make a difference.

thank you,
TR

 

the latch will not grab if i close it with normal force for any other car it kinda laches but the door just bounces back

 

yeah my 87 luxury's like that....

when i close my pass. door it latches half way,
then pops out a little and isn't all the way closed.

is this what your talking about backslider7?

 

Ahhh, I am having the same issue; currently looking for a new mechanism

 

no issues with the frame and door hitting?

 

Nope!

Everything was good, and one day (still remember that day, I was washing the car); opened the door tried to close it, and it didn't close all the way. In order to fully close the door, I have to "swing" HARD, to close it normally, followed by a "hip bump"

I also noticed, that if the sunroof, passenger door, or hatch glass is open, the door will close like it should

 

My GXL has the slight door sag. If you close it by the top of the door with an upward motion to it, it will shut nicely, well relatively, but it latches all the way with less force than just a normal push. I know I have the right amount of force when I close the door if my sunroof pops up a few mm when the door slams. Now my TII on the other hand, I can give it a love tap and it goes.... "click"

 

air pressure, kinda handy for opening up stuck rear hatches

 

You can adjust the location of the latch on the door and the thing it hooks onto on the frame, lube her up and adjust it.

 

How can you adjust them?

Both of them look like a "centralized" part; meaning there is no adjustment at the mounting location.

 

Mine's like this too.. needs a bit of force to close the doors fully, I always figured my car had just been in a front end accident or something..

 

if you want it done right. either remove and replace the latch mechanisms or remove, dissassemble, clean, then reassemble the latch mechanisms and hope they work.

as long as your hinges are lined up right and the door is not contacting the body at any time then you can only point at the latches as the problem.

TR

 

All i did was spray the latching mech on the door with WD-40. Problem fixed!

 

I sprayed all the latches and hinges on my '87. But the passenger door and hatch still have trouble.
But theres bigger fish to fry at the time with this car.

 

WD-40 is not a lubricant, it is a solvent. It will strip away any remaining grease and make the latch even worse in about a week. You need to use white lithium grease. Apply it to all latch parts and all hinges. Then use a powdered graphite grease to lube the actual lock cylinder. This should be done every 3rd or 4th oil change. While you are there, lube the hood latch, hatch latches and hatch hinges.

 

I had this problem and sprayed WD-40 (before I knew it was evil) and it ended up just like Aaron said. So... +1 to WD-40 being crap.

 

Just spent a couple of hours doing this, with no luck!

Here's what's going on my car, there is a black plastic\rubber cover on the door latch. That cover on the driver side was britle, and broke apart; without this cover, the latch suddenly becomes about 1/8 WIDER!!

 

Finally solved the problem, it was in fact a "broken door latch mechanism" issue. A picture is worth a thousand words, so here they are.

 

I'm assuming the first picture is after you replaced this rubber gasket thingy, right? The second is without the gasket? Can you buy a new one of these from Mazda without getting a new latch, or did you just make one yourself? (My passenger door is a little tough to close, so I may be having this same issue.) Thanks!

 

A new latch is needed, Mazda does not sell the rubber\plastic part. I searched all over the net, and couldn't find a place that sells it (or modify\rebuild the stock one). The first pic shows the brand new one from mazda, the second one is the old "broken" one.

 

yeh closing the hatch is a pain when everything is shut haha... even better if someone is in the car and you blow open their eardrums lawl

 

Weird... I just checked the latches on my '88 GTU and both have cracked rubber covers on the latches and look about the same, but only the passenger door is tough to close. I compared this with my S5 "parts car" and the rubber covers on both latches there are perfect. Overall, I'd say the S5 doors close more smoothly than the S4, possibly because the rubber covers are still there, but who knows? I guess I'll do a swap and report whether this improves door closing.

BTW, great thread!