Door handle “sticks”

I love my new ‘24 DC SR5 but 3 times now at random times the driver door doesn’t open. The handle travels/pulls as normal, the door unlatches slightly, but sticks and doesn’t open. If I let go and pull the handle again, it opens. First time was when I had a 4000 lbs travel trailer connected so I thought something may have been temporarily torqued or angled. But then it happened the next day at a gas station without the trailer connected. It happened last week just sitting in my driveway. It has nothing to do with locks any of those times.

Anyone have thoughts?

 

Mines done that exact same thing about 4 times since I bought it in June.

 

Glad it’s not something I did. Have you tried to diagnose it?

 

#quality.

 

Nope…hasn’t happened in a long time. Figured if it ever breaks completely Toyota will fix it, until then don’t even waste your time

 

Stretched cable or the actual latch is dry, stiff. I'd spray some lube on all the moving parts I can reach internally with a can of lube and a ''straw'' extension.

 

Get it looked at by dealer...

 

It will be a classic "can't duplicate the problem" and send OP on his way.

 

That attitude is exactly how things never get fixed. You need to tell them when you have problems. Even if they can't replicate it or can but can't fix it now for some reason, they need reports of failures so they can determine what to do and when.

 

If a dealer can't duplicate the issue with your truck, nothing gets reported to Toyota.

 

There will be records of your complaint. There is no way a major manufacturer does not keep track about what their customers are complaining about.

 

If you walk in a complain about an issue that the dealer cannot replicate or verify, they DO NOT report it to Toyota. In theory if the dealer doesn't recognize the issue, there is nothing to report. Yes, it will be documented in your service history with the dealer but that is about it.

In most cases issues are recognized by the dealer and repaired which would result in a warranty claim to Toyota.

A door handle that doesn't work properly is a mechanical issue that needs repair, not a characteristic of the truck that Toyota will fix because people complain about it.

 

It's probably the locks not unlocking. I can't see why a mechanical door handle would operate intermittently if it's unlocked. How did you rule out it's not the locks?

Edit something could be misaligned or broken where the door latches.

 

Then how to they collect statistics about complaints customers have? Issues are intermittent sometimes. They’re the most insidious ones.

I worked in tech support and repair for a large, fruit themed electronics company. We captured and categorized every customer complaint even if we couldn’t reproduce it. They absolutely kept track of it all, used it to generate statistics and identify trends. They would even communicate to us when they identified a trend of some sort even if they didn’t have a solution yet such that we could relay it to the customers that we knew about it and just haven’t figured the fix out yet.

Again, there’s no way that a company with a quarter trillion dollar market cap doesn’t keep track.

 

I was a service manager at Toyota for almost 10 years, and now I work for Toyota forklift in service.... A door handle that doesn't work properly is a mechanical issue that needs repair, not a characteristic of the truck that Toyota will fix because people complain about it.

If you walk into a dealer and tell them the seats are uncomfortable, you really think they send Toyota an email about it lol.

Again, if the dealer can't see or duplicate the complaint assuming the customer is looking for a fix, then Toyota will never know about.

Now if a ton of people start complaining about the handle not working, and the dealers can duplicate the issue and repair it, then Toyota will analyze the warranties claims through the documents the dealer is required to submit for the claim.

Maybe you don't understand what I am trying to say. Unless the dealer can duplicate the issue and issue a warranty repair, Toyota won't know about it.

 

Can you open the door and operate the handle while looking at the latch to get an idea of what should and should not be moving?

 

It hard to reason with people on this forum, I have learned.....
They have warranties but cant be inconvenienced at all to use them...
& once upon a time they or their mailman had a bad experience & they didnt fix the issue, so everytime is going to be that way...
Thats the logic from the knuckleheads....
They know who they are.........
They know better than the techs that have been working on every aspect of the product for 30+ years....

 

Mostly because it's such an incredible inconvenience to suffer the brain damage of being in a dealership. It's a 30 minute drive. It's 2 hours of waiting. 30 minutes home. That's a minimum of 3 hours of waiting in what amounts to a bad version of a greyhound bus terminal.

 

ok, if you say so....

 

So, on something brand new I wouldn't expect this, but it's possible by the nature of electronics that there are deviations and early failures in random units. It's the nature of everything that 100% of the units cannot be 100% uniform in behavior and endurance. I'm sharing this just in case.

As your handle is traveling normally, nothing is wrong with that part, and it's perfectly fine.

Just spraying lube blindly into the door is plain stupid. You grease and oil specific part interfaces, not cover everything in a coat of crap not knowing what you have now adversely impacted, such as degrading the rubber used in the glass tracks...

First check, are you always fully pulling the handle? Or are there times you're subconsciously stopping short as soon as you feel the slightest movement and therefore haven't actually fully released the latch? Surprising, especially in a rush, this is an insanely common behavior of the operator.

If there is an issue, it can either be in the latch pull cable or the door lock solenoid. If something cracked or broke the plastic connection end on the cable that runs from the handle to the lock, it could experience different travel friends on how fast or slow you pull the handle, causing an intermittent issue. Easy things to check, but requires pulling your door card (interior trim panel) off. Third, and this does not sound like your issue, if the "not unlatching" is actually due to a given door failing to lock or unlock with the rest of them, and the condition is erratic, then the locking solenoid is failing and needs replacement. If it's the early stages this one will be frustrating and very hard to reproduce on demand and will be more common if that for gets hot in the sun before the failure rate increases. Replacement is straightforward, that's the right part and about an hour for the average handy person. This last condition usually only happens when your really high on your ODO translating to hundreds of thousands if not millions of lock/unlock duty cycles.

Just some thoughts