Hi all,
Had this problem on mine last week and after looking through the various forums and horror stories contained within I was not relishing the thought of smashing off the door lock from the inside as this may have been the worse case scenario I was facing.
On further investigation and part removal of the inner door skin, I was looking at the door lock mechanism and operating the central locking and sure enough, the lock was trying to open but as mentioned previously by others, the lock button on the door would pop up momentarily then go back down into the locked position.
In my case the solution was not immediately apparent but after operating the locks and the outer and inner handles and trying to free off the door, this is what I noticed:
1. The lock was trying to open but something was preventing this.
2. After removing the outer weather strip from the top of the door and looking into the lock, it was apparent that the outer door handle mechanism linkage was partially seized and not allowing the main lock mechanism to fully reset (just like if you try to operate the central locking in the pi**ing rain with an impatient passenger pulling on the door handle at the same time!).
3. I manually reset the mechanism by pulling up the lock linkage and operated the central locking 'et voila' the door came open!
4. A few squirts of GT85 (WD40 in a different guise) on the inner workings of the outer door handle and operating it to free it off, the system was sorted and now works every time!
NOW....... It IS possible to do this without removing the inner door panel and either breaking it or the clips that hold it by simply:
1. Roll down the window
2. Remove the outer door weather strip
3. Use a piece of stiff wire/coathanger to hook around the linkage from the outer door handle to the door lock mechanism
4. Pull upwards to reset the lock mechanism
5. Operate the central locking
6. Open the door!
7. Spray liberally with WD40 and operate the handle to free it off
8. Spray any other connections/linkages at the same time
This may not work on a completely failed system but it worked for me and saved me a few quid too, I guess!!
Hope this helps at least one person out!!
Peds