This topic has 17 comments in the Volvo forum.

XC90 Rear door won’t open from inside

Rear door on passenger side just stopped opening from inside today. Cycled through lock/unlock sequence using key fob and driver’s side panel.

Have you had the issue where the XC90 Rear door won’t open ?

crockerdt » 2005 XC90: Rear door on passenger side just stopped opening from inside today. Cycled through lock/unlock sequence using key fob and driver’s side panel. All other doors open from inside. Except for this one. It’s as if the child safety lock is engaged. I can open it from the outside. And I can see the mechanism moving when I pull the inside lever. Anyone else have experience with this?

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XC90 rear door lock mechanism repair – for door that will not unlock from inside

nacho7 » You can fix the non working rear inside door handle. It is broken,and not a child safety lock issue. 30 minutes, minimal tools needed

I have a 2006 XC90. Both rear doors would not open with the inside handle. Not a child safety lock issue as they were not engaged. Not a central locking issue either, I did not have the optional electronic activation for safety locks, The issue was cheap Volvo plastic parts. On both sides the black plastic clip that holds the cable into the door release handle had broken,leaving the cable flapping around inside the door doing nothing. To “repair”, you have to pop off the silver plastic cover over the door closing handle–lift it up and then out, I used a putty knife to get it loose.

Then take out the two TORX screws that hold the door panel to the door. Then use the putty knife to pop the upper portion of the door panel away from the base of the window about 5 inches, you don’t have to release the lower portion of the panel or loosen the handle plastic covering or loosen the window switch.You can see when you look down into the door where the cable is loose and place it back into the notch in the door handle. Make sure it is in right by flipping the door latch with your finger and pulling the inside handle to see it release the latch. If you have it in correctly. take a hot glue gun and glue all the edges of the plastic end of the cable to the handle mechanism. I then put pieces of thin cardboard onto the glued areas with more hot glue to make sure it doesn’t pop out again. Then pop the upper portion of the panel back on and replace the TORX screws in the panel to the door. Snap your silver door handle back on and you are fixed.

mnsherk » Start with the pull handle and, using a putty knife gently pry under the leading edge to disengage the three plastic teeth shown on the right side of pic 6. Once these are free rotate the handle up and towards the door and remove it from the panel. Next, with a T25 remove the two screws securing the door panel to the door. For the front doors, gently pull the triangular piece of plastic up at the mirror, disconnect the electrical connector (if necessary), and remove the triangle. Next, use a rigid putty knife to go around the sides and bottom of the door panel and pop the panel off of the plastic clips. Amazingly, this is the first door panel I’ve removed where the clips didn’t pull out of the panel or break! The should have used this type of plastic for the door handle assembly!! The electrical connectors from the harness to the door are male so push down or in (not out) on the tabs to unlock the connectors and pull them apart. Once you have the panel free, you’ll see that the two small clips (yellow arrows in top two pics) which actually retain the handle end of the cable assembly are very soft JUNK plastic. I super-glued these cracked clips, but wasn’t convinced of the remaining strength. In order to prevent the end of the cable assembly from continuing to pull out of the handle assembly I used plastic pipe strapping and secured it with the two screws (green arrows in first pic) which mount the handle assembly to the door panel. As an added measure, I drilled two holes in the black plastic bracket (orange arrows) and saddled a zip-tie over the other side of the end of the cable assembly. Works well!! I may just apply the strapping to the other 3 doors BEFORE they break. Oh, and by the way, you can’t buy just the black piece that contains the two small clips from the dealer – you must buy the complete door handle assembly which runs $138 plus tax. This was a $5 fix. Hope this helps someone else…

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Rear door won’t open from inside

Bonus – About The XC90

The Volvo XC90 is a full-size luxury crossover SUV manufactured and marketed by Volvo Cars since 2002 and now in its second generation.

The first generation was introduced at the 2002 North American International Auto Show and used the Volvo P2 platform shared with the first generation Volvo S80 and other large Volvo cars. It was manufactured at Volvo’s Torslandaverken. Volvo moved production equipment of the first generation to China and ended Swedish production at the end of 2014, renaming the car as the Volvo XC Classic (or Volvo XC90 Classic).

At the end of 2014, the second generation XC90 was introduced. It is based on a new global platform, the Scalable Product Architecture (SPA). Both generations of the XC90 have won Motor Trend‘s SUV of the Year award in their debuts.

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