A3 door trim removal and door lock replacement

[spud75]

Reason for doing this in the first place:
2009 8P A3had a passenger side rear door lock often would not unlock with key fob or internal unlock switch. This meant the only way to open the door was from the inside door handle. To make things worse, the bay seat is next to the rear passenger rear door, and the smaller person has now decided to try and open door whilst the car is moving. Putting the child lock on, will make it impossible to open the door at all.

Acquired a replacement door lock mechanism from the UK. The lock unit is a single entire unit.

Acquired Elsawin and Audi files.

This is for information for those that may ever have to do this, or want to change the speakers in the rear doors etc.

Allow 2 hours, so you can take your time and not be rushed.

Before you start, you will need, an M8 spline (multi-point) wrench. This is like a torx but more points and quite hard to find. A Torx number 25, and a plastic wedge (as per audi manual), I found a plastic bicycle tyre lever worked perfectly.

The Elsawin manual was quite good with its description, and this while thing was far easier than removing the centre console (broke the bit of plastic the cigarette lighter fits in)

1. With the door open, and ignition off and key removed. Use plastic wedge to pry off, the small speaker cover at the top of the trim, under the window.
2. Use plastic wedge to pry off plastic trim that surrounds the power window switch in the arm rest.
3. Remove 2 x torx screws, one beside the small tweeter speaker, and the other in the plastic beside the power window switch. (you dont need to remove the obvious screw in the top of the armrest!)
4. Now the entire door trim will 'pop' off. I couldnt believe there was only two screws, but that is all there is. Start near the bottom somewhere and pry the door plastic away from the door metal. Use plastic wedge or two to slowly increase the gap. The door trim holds on tight via plastic plugs that dont have barbs so dont be scared. I was surprised how hard I had to pull at the trim. It needs a serious bit of force, but the retaining plugs eventually pop off one by one.
5. Once all retaining plugs have popped oof, the door trim should lift vertically up and off the window sill. This may be a bit stiff as well, but it will come off. DONT go too far.

There are three attachments behind. One electrical plug behind the large speaker (this has a purple cage leaver that you move and the pug pops out, One in the middle of the door, this one you push the catch in, to then slide the electrical plug out, and finally, the door handle is attached to the operating cable by a hook on the end of the cable. Lift the cable up and un-catch the hook.

6. Voila, door trim is off. Should be less than 5 mins.

7. Now there is not much to see, as the inside door skin covers most everything.
8. There is a black plastic covering a portal in the door skin, this has small slightly indented rectangles scattered around the edge.
9. The rectangles mark the catch points for the plastic cover. I used a medium flat screwdriver at this point (carefully), and slid the screwdriver in at the middle of the rectangle which pushed the catch underneath away and allowed the cover to lift off. You dont have to push the screwdriver in vary far, 3-4mm maybe?
10. The inside door handle actuating cable passes through the plastic cover through a rubber boot., this boot presses out, to allow the plastic cover to be put aside.
11. you can now see the door lock mechanism.
12 look inside and up toward the top of the door, and you should be able to just see the door handle connecting rod coming down to the door lock mechanism. This rod is secured with a plastic flap/catch that is grooved. Think almost a bolt and nut, but the nut can be opened up into two halves so you dont have to unscrew it.
13. This is a bit hard to describe and Elsawin wasnt very good either, but there is a yellow bit on the outside of the door side, that you push away from the mechanism. This is the catch that holds a black plastic flap over the connecting rod. lift the black flap toward the lock mechanism, and the connecting rod should just lift off the catch.
14. Finally, undo the 2 x M8 spline bolts one above and below the door catch on the outside of the door, and almost done.
15. To remove the mechanism, rotate the mechanism on a vertical axis to rotate around the window guide on the inside of the door. This was really snug, so needs a bit of a wiggle and maneuver, and then the door lock mechanism is out.
16. Re-installation is the reverse of removal, all the way back.
17. Dont forget to properly set the white stop guide in the door trim for the actuating cable after putting the hook back into the inside of the inside door handle. (end of step 5)

18. Finally, check to make sure everything works BEFORE closing the door again!!

I apologise for the lack of pictures, but this was surprisingly simple.

[Auditude]

Where did you get the mechanism from I'd you don't mind me asking? My driver's door mechanism has gone

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[spud75]

Where did you get the mechanism from I'd you don't mind me asking? My driver's door mechanism has gone

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I used partsgateway.co.uk.

They search multiple parts dealers. The actual dealer ended up being Motors in Motion Ltd. They were very good to deal with and were prompt on posting. Part was well bubble wrapped.

Be sure to ask for delivery to Australia and specify early. I did this and still had a response where the dealer wanted to send somewhere in the UK.

I had tried a dealer locally, but go no response from my enquiries.

My driver door may be going as well.

[spud75]

Bump.

Now the passenger door front has gone too...... Doh.

Will post details of the removal of the front when I get around to it.

[Auditude]

Cool. I've been lazy and just been using my key to open the door the past few months :-P
I should probably get around to fixing it

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