hi, the drivers side door on my 355 wont open..? it was working no problem previously.. the car is unlocked.. and passenger door opens with no issue..? ive been having to get in and out from passenger door for a day now.. driver door will not open from outside, neither from inside.. i even try pulling up on lock knob while trying to open the door via outside/inside with no success..?
Have you tried from the outside of the car pull the door handle with your left hand and with your right hand by the key hole area of the door give a couple sharp inward (closing door) pushes. Sometimes they get jammed up and they actually need to push in a bit to relieve the pressure. If this works you may want to adjust your striker pin outward a couple mm.
Been there. Very frustrating. Continue to do what you've been doing. Again and again and again and again.
hi.. much appreciate the feedback.. I tried all that was described above.. pulling, pushing in, while pulling handle etc.. with/without key etc.. turned power off tried, turned back on tried again.. unfortunately nothing.. and I dont want to break something else in process.. the passenger door makes that perfect click when you open.. whereas now the driver door theres nothing.. so going to my Ferrari mechanic this afternoon to see what he can do..
Problem solved.. dropped by my indie Ferrari Mechanic.. and he yanked on the lock knob while compressing the handle from oustside and it pop right open.. im pretty sure I tried the exact same thing.. I guess didnt pull hard enough.. anways its all good now.. no more crawling out the passenger door like an idiot lol..
I am having the same problem with my driver's door. I tried the solution above but it did not work for me. I recently replaced the door release cable and evidently I did not align the locking mechanism correctly, although it worked for two weeks after I did the repair. After doing a search I tried some of the solutions offered by others to no avail. I used zip ties to tie the interior door release handle in the open position and then tried jacking up the car at different points to hopefully pop the door open. I sent a private message to Ernie yesterday and his recommendation was to push in on the door while holding in the door release button. Unfortunately, that did not work either. With the zip ties in place holding the interior door release handle up, I drove the car about 20 miles on the most undulating roads I could find but the door remained securely closed. At the suggestion of Daniel I called Bradan today. They recommended using air bag wedge like the one below. Tomorrow morning I am taking the car to a body shop I trust. They have one of these air bags but are very doubtful it will work. They have a boroscope with a lighted camera that we are going to use to hopefully discover what is wrong. Very frustrating as I have been fighting this for the past two days. Image Unavailable, Please Login
There is a very small part in the latch mechanism that breaks causing periodic problems such as this. Once you get it open it may work fine for a while but it will stick again. You need to fix it or replace it. It's part of the locking mech and not the one that hill makes a replacement for.
The latch on my 348 has two locking points. If I close the door lightly it will latch and keep it closed, but if I then give the door a bump with my butt it closes tighter. What sounds like is going on is either the latch in the door, or the striker on the body have gotten out of alignment. Just the smallest movement can cause the second latching point to be really tight. Try pushing and holding the button, from the outside, while bumping the door closed more with your butt. Also, The 348 is over 20 years old, and the 355 nearing the 20 year mark. That is a lot of time for dirt and crud to get gummed up inside the latch. I had a similar problem with our BMW, where the hood release cable would open the latch. You had to pull on it pretty hard to get the hood to pop open. Even having someone bang on the area of the hood where the latch is located (Fonzy juke box style) while the other was pulling the release handle inside the cabin. Once open I sprayed some WD40 in the latch and that loosened it up again. Soooooooooo................. It could also be years of junk gummed up in the latch preventing it from opening.
355's are the same. The first month I had mine, I was closing the door too gently and driving around only at the first latch point. Then I realized the door must be closed with so good force. In this photo, you can see the door not fully closed Image Unavailable, Please Login
I took my car to the body shop today and they were able to open the door by disconnecting the latch cable at the rear. Turns out I had too much tension on the cable I had recently installed. According to the body shop lock expert (The owner of the shop told me it is a good thing this guy is a good Christian as he can break into any car!!) there should be a very small amount of slack in the cable for the latch to totally disengage. He said BMW uses a very similar arrangement which is why he immediately saw the same problem he has seen on BMW's. As soon as he detached the cable, the door opened from the outside like normal. Now I get to take it all apart again so I can first re-attach the cable and then adjust it. I am just so happy to have the door open that working on it is a minor thing.
