Ray Magliozzi
Dear Car Talk:
I inherited a 2017 Lincoln Continental when my parents both passed in 2021. It had about 17,000 miles on it at the time. It now has about 63,000.
A few days ago, our daughters drove it to church. On arrival, one daughter got out of the passenger side front and got a disposable tablecloth caught in the door jamb while closing the door. She then tried to open the door to remove the tablecloth, but the door wouldn’t open. She finally pulled the tablecloth out, but to this day, the door won’t open.
A local dealership looked at it, and their remedy is to cut a hole in the door panel, big enough to reach in and release the door lock by hand. That means replacing the door panel plus whatever parts of the lock mechanism have to be replaced. According to the dealer, this work will be “in the $5,000 range.”
Is there another, less destructive way to get the door open? The driver’s side has a manual override button but it is the only door with that feature.
— Ron
Condolences, Ron. On the loss of your parents and your Continental’s passenger door. Unfortunately, Lincoln thought it would impress buyers with a push-button door latch on this car. So, to get out of the car, you press a button on the door panel and that button electronically activates the door latch. That saves you the backbreaking labor of pulling the door handle yourself. It also adds another mechanism that, as you’ve learned, can and will eventually fail.
Your dealer believes that the lock, the latch or the electric motor that releases the latch has failed. And he’s right that it’s nearly impossible to remove the interior door panel to get access to that stuff while the door is closed. So, drilling a hole in the door panel makes sense.
But I’m still not sure how they get to $5,000. If there are failed electronic parts in there, rather than just a latch with a piece of tablecloth wrapped up in it, I suppose you could be in for a $500 or $1,000 repair. Then the door panel, which is just an upholstered piece of cardboard, should be a couple of hundred bucks more.
Before you go down that road with the dealer, I’d take the car to a local body shop first. While the dealer will go by the book, a local body shop may be more willing to think creatively. They might try alternative ways of getting that door open. They can try jimmying it or even having their employee “Moose” remove the passenger seat and try to get better access to the interior panel that way. Once they get the door open, even if they do have to drill through the inside panel, they can also find you used parts.
Even if they have to drill into it in the end, you could also ask them to try to do it as surgically as possible, so you might even be able to find a way to reattach the drilled-out piece, rather than replace the whole door panel.
Yeah, it won’t look pristine, but how many other people will have Lincoln Continentals with secret hiding compartments for their stolen diamonds?
Got a question about cars? Write to Ray in care of King Features, 628 Virginia Drive, Orlando, FL 32803, or email by visiting the Car Talk website at www.cartalk.com.
