2002 Pontiac Montana power sliding door won't open

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Swenny

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Scenario:
Door does not open from outside, either manually or with any of the buttons. If I open the front passenger door, then push on the lever inside the sliding door a couple of times I can get it to pop open. From there I can use any of the buttons to open it all the way and subsequently close it

When it try the buttons I hear it make the noise like it's trying to open but then it doesn't pop open and makes another sound like it's re-latching

I found this video which I'm guessing provides a similar setup to start with
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK4R2WXeug8


Things I'm going to try tonight:
- Remove the fuse/circuit breakers from the right side fuse panel and the one under the hood and see if it resets itself
- Grease the locking mechanism

Has anyone had any luck with fixing this? Slack in the cord maybe? Replace the contact plates and switches? Something with the lock mechanism or door handle?

Thanks!
 
have no experience with this but , I would try to clean the contacts with a pencil eraser ,both sides(the fixed brass plate on the post and the spring loaded fingers on the door itself). I read that they get dirty and sometimes make bad contact and then they screw up the logic. good luck and keep us posted
 
I cleaned the contacts with ioprophyl alcohol the other night, didn't help unfortunately. I've found that if I open the door from the inside first using the handle, it will work as intended most of the time. If I pull the outside handle first and then try the inside handle, it seems to not work automatically, but rather just pop open

Also, I noticed the outside door handle seems loose and it looks like rain could seep into it so I think I'm going to start with taking the panel off and taking a look. Some other people posted about the actuator maybe not releasing all the way so I'm going to check that also

Will post results
 
I had a similar problem with my Montana. The issue was with a pop rivet that had come loose in the door mechanism. I pulled the rivet out all together and replaced it with a sheet metal screw and had no problems since. Check for loose rivets when you take the panel off.
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I'm back. Been at this for 2 days now. I included some pics to help others

- First thing is to remove the handle. To do this, you have to remove the little horseshoe shaped clip on the back of the handle. Use a scredriver and a rage or Google it to see other ways (see Fig. 1 for a pic of the handle and clip)
- Next is to remove the first couple clips from the top door panel(Fig. 2)
- Then start removing the bottom panel. Note that the bottom panel may look like 2 separate pieces, but it is only 1 (Fig. 3)
- Once that is off, peel back the top left plastic to reveal the locking system. Since I wanted to check out the lower left corner of the handle because it looked loose, I had to take it apart. What I did was remove the 3 size 10 bolts that hold the door lock mechanism, then the 4 T30 Torx screws that hold the latch to the door. Once that happened, it dropped down to the point that I could remove the 3 size 10 bolts that hold the handle in place (note, don't count on the door to catch these. I lost 1 somehow :o)
- To my disappointment, there was no bolt in the lower left corner (Fig. 5). So I re-attached everything and sprayed WD-40 in as many nooks and crevices that I could, but it still will only make the noise like it's trying to open and then re-lock

So my thoughts are this:
- The actuator needs replacing
- Something with the rear locking latch on the door
- Jcornaglia mentioned a rivet. I'll take another look to see if I can find anything. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

Thanks!
 
My mechanic buddy is going to look at this on Sunday with me. Hoping we can make some headway. I'll try to take some more pics also
 
Some more info while it's fresh in my head

- There are two actuators for the power sliding door. One for the lock, and one for the latch. I'm not sure if the latch one is the same for both latches or not. I'll find out but if you ever need to order one of them make sure you get the right one
- Autozone has a good walkthrough for replacing these on their website here
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I'm pleased to report we found the issue. I was on the right track, but didn't quite find it

The issue for mine ended up being with the rod that opens the back latch. When I opened the latch (Fig. 1), the rod wasn't pulling the back latch actuator all the way open. We figured this out by opening the interior handle, and then pulling the rod towards the front of the car. An extra 1/4" and the back latch popped open. So we just bent the rod a little (Fig. 2) and now it's working like a champ. I should note that if this does happen you will want to bend the rod in towards the door and not out towards you as in my picture. I had issues after putting the trim back on

So it's fixed for now. I can foresee this not working again in the near future unfortunately though so when that time comes I'll look into a better fix

P.S. I even found the bolt I had lost last week :)
 
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