Recently purchased a second 97 Geo Metro 4 door and carefully inspected the operation of every working system. Initially all of the door handles, door locks, child safety locks, etc... worked fine. The next day the outside door handle on the left rear door did not work, but the inside handle did. Since then the lever has worked, then not worked, intermittently. Given the rather generous extra space inside a car door I would think that an outside handle would remain disconnected if it became so. As a sedan user I know that the left rear door can be the second most used door on the car, but that doesn't explain why the handle would fail... and then not fail later. The door in question does have an operational child safety lock, but the interior release lever has worked every time the outside lever failed. Setting and releasing the child safety lock did get the outside door handle to work once. Does anybody have any insights into why this might happen so randomly?
I have the same car, same problem. I've still not been able to fix it, despite taking the inside panels off the rear doors, checking the rods were seated, applying WD-40 to the lock mechanisms, and manually working the mechanism. Child locks are not engaged, but I tried putting them on and off too. Just won't open.
1,207 views
Usually answered in minutes!
Found the problem! The 95-97 metros had an adjustable connection to the outside door handle, apparently, it' breaks, and slips intermittently. I fixed it by replacing the handle linkage witch one from a 98 Metro. it's not adjustable, but it doesn't need to be. since then, it has worked flawlessly. I'm still in the dark about what causes this problem, but the other three doors on this Metro, and all four doors on my other one any without any hint of this problem. It may be that this was just a Friday car.
×