the other day i went to dominos with my friend to buy a pizza...he was driving...i came back out and tried opening the passenger door and the handle pulled up but there was no resistance at all and this happened very abruptly. i have had many problems with the locks having to deal with the alarm and the locks sticking...its happpened many times...but this is the worst...its not the lock. its the handle i have no idea whats going on with this thing..anyone please help

 

does it open still from the inside???

If so you have a broken exterior handle

 

One quick note.. Was it locked and now wont come unlocked?

There is a tiny spring that likes to come off inside and if its not on, or falls of, you wont be able to get the door unlocked.

 

no its not locked...it opens from the inside but not the outside...how hard is it to fix a broken exterior handle if thats what it is..is it just taking it out and replacing it or is it more

 

bumpity bump

 

You will have to pull off the door panel and see if the handle is simply unhooked or broken and needing replacing.

It is pretty simple either way, and you should see what is really up and how to remove the handle (if needed) once the inner door panel has been removed.

 

My passenger handle doesn't work from the outside either. In my case, it's a little plastic doohickey that's missing between the mechanism and the latch rod. I don't know where to get a new one. Every time I see auctions for new handles, they seem to come without the plasitc doohickey.

PJ

 

i got the same problem too.......... except mine is the driver side door. icemark, mine is simple undone, after looking at the passengerside door i noticed the reason y it came undone and won't stay on is because it is missing some kind of washer on the handle that holds the lever, how do i fix it? i did pull one off of an 88 out of a junk yard, but could not get my hand in my door to put it back on and eventually lost the peice.


-Shawn

 

The piece you mention sounds like the plastic retainer.

You'll need it to lock the rod in.

the retainers are pretty cheap at the local Mazda dealer, I would just order up a new one.

I don't think you can bend the rod to lock in without the retainer.

 

im havin the same prob right now. its a pain to try and work in that little space.

 

I just fixed the problem, the plastic piece was missing from the handle when I bought the car, I broke in and bought a new handle, fixed it in just a few minutes.. hardest part was getting the lock cylinder back in while putting the handle in, hard to get the angles just right..

 

ok thanks everyone i think i have an idea of what to do now

 

omg guys this is gonna be extremely hard!! i can't even see the second bolt to get the handle off...even with the panel off on the inside...i did fix the lock though..but anyway i now see that when i pull the outside handle it pulls up but the rod that pulls the catch on the side of the door does nothing...could it be anything else besides a broken handle??