2010 CX-9 Can't open passenger front door from inside or outside

djc6 · Aug 31, 2024

2010 CX-9 Touring with 170K miles.

My wife went to open passenger front door last night and the exterior door handle came off in her hand. Worse, from the interior you can't unlock the door or open it.

How do I remove the interior door panel without the door open? I've removed the door panels before, but I could always open the door. I removed the trim parts including the interior handle, the cover over the power mirror wires, etc.. but I can't get pry tool around the interior pool panel to pull it off. Any tricks?

Pulling on the exposed cables for the lock and lever do nothing. Worse, I heard what I believe to be one of the lock actuator connecting rods fall off and go to the bottom of the door interior.

djc6 · Sep 2, 2024

I finally got it open, it took the better part of a day.

First I tried removing the belt molding from outside - this video is just how the chrome belt molding is on my 2010 cx9. MUST USE SKINNY PICK LIKE SHOWN. It makes it so much easier. One tab goes toward you, the other away from you. With a skinny pick you can do both at once.

Once that was off, I could use these hemostat forceps to grab onto the lever that the door handle uses to open/close door: https://www.harborfreight.com/12-inch-locking-clamp-94952.html

I might try 24" hemostat forceps on amazon. Pushing DOWN on the rod opens the door. This didn't work for me, maybe because my forceps weren't long enough. Eventually the rod fell off inside the door.

This video encouraged me to remove the passenger seat which wasn't too hard, to have more room to work.

I was able to pull the panel off the door without any pry tools. I have plenty of pry tools, there just isn't room. I even remove B pillar trim so I could remove the weatherstripping. I just went HAM on the top of the door panel and rolled it over the top of the door and the panel came off. I did this AFTER I confirmed my local junk yard had one in my color.

Now I could see the top of the lock actuator but didn't know what to do. This video below encouraged me to make random holes into the top of the lock actuator plastic housing - I did so by poking holes into it with a 2ft long torx driver I had.

The above video was the most helpful - especially around 4:15 mark. Once I had some holes made in the top of the plastic housing of the actuator, I used a coat hanger to just poke at stuff though the holes. The fifth hole I made I magically hit something inside that popped the door open! Then I was able to disassemble the door property, remove the remains of the broken exterior door handle, removed lock actuator.

This is a good video on that process - How to Replace Exterior Door Handle 2007-2015 Mazda CX-9

I ordered from Factory Direct Mazda Replacement Parts | Mazda Parts Connect - I ordered the DRIVER exterior door handle and lock actuator from them Dec 2023. Passenger front failed less than a year later.

The exterior door handle has a spring on it, and the plastic around the spring was just gone - I found bits of plastic and the spring inside the bottom of the door. Same failure as my driver side door.

djc6 · Sep 2, 2024

In the third image below you can see what went wrong. This is the lock mechanism - somehow that plastic arm/peg came out of the hole its supposed to be in. I took some pictures of the inside of the lock actuator with the plastic housing removing in case its helpful for anyone else.

This is why my lock failed: that plastic peg is supposed to be inside that hole. The plastic peg is connected to the cable for opening/closing the lock.