Sliding door latch needing to be opened manually!

[tankentai]

For the past couple years my sliding door latch has alternately worked with no problem, then changed to where I have to open the latch before I can close the door. Has anyone else had this problem and know what I need to do to fix it?

Thanks in advance...

[tankentai]

Maybe I'm the only one that's ever had this problem but I'm sure that it's probably been dealt with before. It's something you don't even normally think about; open the door, close the door. Well I have to open the door, pull back on the outside handle and flip open the latch with my thumb so that the door will close when I slide it shut.

[LEVE]

On my ol' Caravans, when this happened, I used to

• take the sliding door off
• Clean/lube the runners
• Clean/lube or replace the bearings
• Reinstall/Adjust the sliding door

In 750,000 miles of owning those vans, I only had to replace bearings once. It's a PITA to do the job, but once it is done, if you do semi-yearly maintenance on the slides and bearings, the door will give good service.

[tankentai]

I do lube the latches, hinges and runners from time to time, but this is a problem of the latch at the rear of the door not fully opening when I open the sliding door and I suspect it has to be a broken spring or something causing friction to prevent it from opening on its own.

I'm going to go out and look at it again and see (once again) if I can find anything obvious and the more I think about it the more I expect to find a broken spring.

[JaseS10]

I know exactly what your talking about. Unfortunately I'm not really sure how to correct it without just replacing the latch. I had that same problem on a few vehicles. I would just lubricate them and for the most part it would fix it. But ya it sucks when you go to close your door and it just bounces back open. I would suggest replacing the latch.

[tankentai]

Right now the van is full to the gills from just having moved out of employee housing at the place I've been working for years but after I empty it out I'm going to open the access panel on the inside and see if there's anything obvious. At least you know what I'm talking about and I'm not the only one to have it happen!

[tankentai]

Just a little update - the latch is still problematic, but at least I verified that the spring which makes it flip to the open position is broken. Still having to use my thumb to open it every time and after having failed to get a latch mechanism out of another van have decided to just live with it until I can find another door to replace the whole thing.