Hi,

Skoda Fabia 1.4 Ellegance (03) - the lock on my passenger door has become intermittent. Sometimes it opens and other times it stays locked (the button stays down). This happened on the back door before and it ended up locked shut. It then cost me a fortune for them to sort it out.

When the lock stays down you can hear a sound from inside the door so I wondered if something is just slipping and whether it is worth trying to get the trim off to take a look. Is this likely to be something simple or do you think I should let the garage deal with it.

Thank you for any assistance.

Take the door card off and see, the problem might be obvious right on front of you that can easily be solved and save you a fortune. If its not then id steer clear from big garages etc and bring it to a known back street auto spark.

Also ask him to ring you when he discovers the problem so he can give you a price to repair it. Some just go ahead and fix it/fit a new parts then hand you a nice bill at the end.

If yours is an 03, then the door carrier can be simply unbolted rather than drilling rivets out. Makes the job much easier.

Mine did a similar thing.

It can be done DIY to save on garage bills.

I bought a "new" lock mechanism from a breakers before mine went completely.

Only took about an hour to swap it over once I had all the right tools.

Quite a simple job of unbolting and unclipping parts. Not difficult really.

You'll need a spline bit to unbolt the lock from the door.

A new lock mechanism from a dealers is about £120, where as second hand can be had for about £30.