Toyota Yaris year 2014

I was presented with the above vehicle this morning and asked to look at the passenger front door that won't open from inside or outside. I first tried the central locking and feel of each door panel to see if I could feel the lock mechanism operating, and it seemed that I could feel vibration and hear noise indicating that each door was operating. Next I thought I'll plug the scanner in and see if any activation software is available that might let me operate the door locks? Clearly on this occassion I would be out of luck. I then decided to do a Google search and see if anyone had suffered the problem before me, surely that age of car people must have the experience now to know and understand how to resolve this problem?

I read a good few posts about peoples experiences with this problem. I read everything from people ripping the door trims off to drilling the doors and locks (I kid you not). A dealer said their charges for opening and fixing the door was £650 on one thread. By this time I was getting the idea that I was in for some problems!

I thought about removing the passengers front seat to gain better access to removing the door trim, but then decided to try and pry the door trim away from the window channel. This seemed to work successfully and gave plenty of visual access inside the door once the inner plastic was pulled away from the door frame.

The lock assembly is not accessible at this point, but visual access is possible to the lock inside the door. Now given the lock electrics can be heard working and both inside and outside handles are working and connected, I figured that the problem must be a seized lock. 

How can I deal with that problem? Well the lock is sealed and I can't get spray lubricant inside, so the only thing I could think of was to insert a long drift into the door and locate on the lock assembly. Once located I hit it (Not too hard) several times with the hammer and kept trying the lock. It seems that after direct hitting with the drift and hammer that the vibration must have dislodged the lock mechanism and allowed the door to open when I operated the outside door handle.

I think that was a stroke of luck! After removal of the lock a visual inspection showed that the lock is a sealed unit and no internal access without grinding rivets off, so no way to lubricate internally even after the lock has been removed. A new lock costs £200 plus the time to fit it. Overall the job went well and no damage to door components was necessary.