How do you open the door?
A problem I’ve been meaning to deal with on my car for a while now was the interior door handle.
One day I pulled on it too hard and since then the door become difficult to open. It was one of those “I’ll fix it later” or “before the MOT” jobs. Amazingly I never actually got around to dealing with it. I ended up putting the car in for it’s MOT recently. I received a call from the garage within 20 minutes of putting it in for it’s test, and the garage called me asking this question
I knew this wasn’t going to be a good day. I instructed them to pull a bit harder, cue garage calling me back about 10 mins later. They basically said I’d have to take away the car and look at the door. As they were having problems opening it, and it was meant to be easy to open. If he put it’s through it’s test it would fail instantly. Simply because you had to almost pull the handle off to open it, like this
OK, that was my fault for being lazy and not dealing with it
I ended up rushing around the car taking it home, and resulting in taking off the door card. My initial guess after the problems started was that I had pulled a cable loosen or broken something inside beside the door. So I was hoping it was something simple
I was greeted with the following view
Luckily it was an easy fix, I had simply dislodged the grommet and just had to put it back into it’s mounting position.
Once I replaced this, I tested and the door opened up really easily.
I managed to get the car in for it’s MOT and it passed the same day
Need to repair your Audi A3 door handle yourself?
If you have this problem, here’s the following
- Unscrew the Torx screws at bottom of the door (mine were missing, best guess is they’re T20)
- Remove the cover cap near the handle lock switch, undo the T20 here
- Look under the grab handle, it’s a T25 torx, remove this
- Lower the electric window, and yank the door card to pull away from the door
- Lift upwards on the door card to dislodge from the door
- Push the grommet back in, and reattach the door card and screws
Smile and enjoy your cup of tea for your 5 minute fix
Your door should now open with the simplest of pulls
