My wife has a 2014 Mazda five. The drivers door handle had started to feel like it might be breaking. It needed some paint touchup, so I took it to a local body shop to have the front bumper re-sprayed and the door handle replaced.
They were happy to do the paint work, but said that the doorhandle "felt fine to them."
Yesterday it finally broke, and the drivers door could not be closed. Fortunately, she was near home, since she had to drive home holding the door shut.
I pulled the door panel, removed the outside latch, and lock cylinder, and ordered a new outer door handle. The inside is working normally. I had removed the lock cylinder, and I pulled the fuse for the power locks before locking the car up for the night.
I got a text from her this morning, it turns out that there's only one outside lock cylinder on the car! I've always had old cars, and this thing of only putting one outside lock cylinder on a car is new to me. I never even thought of it. I don't know how I'm going to get back in it. Any suggestions?
It's a Mazda thing; my 2004 Mazda6 only had a driver's side key cylinder. You might be able to go through the hole left by the key cylinder and actuate the mechanical lock by pushing or pulling on the cam or lever that the lock cylinder engages with. I have had to do that before, on a VW. Hopefully that's possible on the Mazda. With the hole around it being painted you might want to put masking tape over it and poke a hole in the masking tape, to prevent scratching the paint on the handle.
I forgot to mention: use a long, small flat blade screwdriver through the hole to push or pull on things.
I think 95% of vehicles haven't had a passenger key lock for years now. The Hatch should though, if it does not, it's what ^^He^^ said
If you can get something inside the hole for the door handle there should be an actuator rod for the door lock mechanism, if you can pull it up that should unlock the door. Not sure how you'd get the latch pulled though since that looks like it's a cable of some sort based on the parts illustration (really detailed, huh...) If not maybe a locksmith can get inside with their tools on one of the other doors.
TLDR.. What dculberson said...
I'm sorry, but I have to laugh a little bit. The power locks would have been your saving grace here but you specifically disabled them. And of course, the whole system is designed to be difficult to access if you aren't inside the car because that's the whole point. I can just see the Mazda engineers saying "but why? this makes no sense! Why would someone do this?". As someone who gets the phone calls from customers who have done a thing we never expected them to do, I'm chuckling. You cannot predict the ingenuity people have for doing the unexpected.
So, looking in the factory manual, I can't find much. Not even a good diagram of the linkages inside the door. There is mention of a rod, so at least it's a mechanical lock and not an electrical switch.
The removed lock - check out that arm sticking out of the top.
Terrible diagram of the mechanism, but it might give a clue as to the location of the arm in question.
A different tactic- those are some tall doors. I bet you can bend the top corner of the door out enough to slip a long something in there and manually flip the lock tab, or pull the release to open the door.
I was following this article from the motoIQ website. I used to read it pretty regularly, but it seemed to go more into drifting than performance cars. The writer specifically said that he disabled the power locks.
If I could access the fuse box, I could replace the fuse, but it's under the hood.
I think I'll be able to access the rod to open the door, it's just stressful being at work and not being able to do anything. My wife thinks it's funny, and it's her car. We've been through a lot together, she knows what really matters. This is just an annoyance, and something to laugh about later.
Wait, so it doesn't have an external driver's door handle or a lock cylinder, and you disabled the power locks...how did you manage to lock it in the first place?
Flip the lock on the door before closing? An early Miata wouldn't allow you do this and neither would a lot of German cars, but a 2014 Mazda would.
Got AAA? They have free locksmithing. Just tell them you are locked out.
Time to borrow that endoscope from work!
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
You can buy small air bags on Amazon that are used to spread the upper door gap so you can get a "coat hanger" in there...
93gsxturbo said:
Got AAA? They have free locksmithing. Just tell them you are locked out.
FWIW, we had to use AAA's locksmith services during the $2000 Challenge. It was not my car–seriously, not me–but I was the one on the phone with them. The locksmith was quick and professional.
Steve_Jones said:
I think 95% of vehicles haven't had a passenger key lock for years now. The Hatch should though, if it does not, it's what ^^He^^ said
C&D did an article about how insurance companies and automakers work together to make insurance costs lower. Aside from making certain things cheaper to repair, this is also why cars have only one lock cylinder. It reduces the number of attack points for vehicle theft.
Apparently it was real common in Europe for cars to disappear and be found "further east", so anything that made theft more difficult was a win.
There are some videos of using duct tap on a door glass to make a handle so you can pull the glass down ,
OK , it's on the Internet , so it must be true ( hahaha) but it's cheap to try !
Newer Mazda, but watch this video:
https://youtu.be/9tuJon30bOA
I open locked cars all the time at work and we usually use some variation of this method, but most often with a wedge.
Be careful if you use a wedge because they're sharp and can damage the weatherstripping.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:
Steve_Jones said:
I think 95% of vehicles haven't had a passenger key lock for years now. The Hatch should though, if it does not, it's what ^^He^^ said
C&D did an article about how insurance companies and automakers work together to make insurance costs lower. Aside from making certain things cheaper to repair, this is also why cars have only one lock cylinder. It reduces the number of attack points for vehicle theft.
Apparently it was real common in Europe for cars to disappear and be found "further east", so anything that made theft more difficult was a win.
The last time anyone picked a lock on an automobile was the premiere episode of Magnum pi where he kept saying, "Work the lock, don't look at the dogs."
Honda and the like, jam a screwdriver through the door handle and wiggle. Everything else, toss a rock through the window.
Nobody picks locks for criminal gain anymore.
In reply to Streetwiseguy :
I don't disagree, but that was how it was presented.
There was also a bit about how it took a very long time to explain to Japanese makes that they had to redesign their lock mechanisms. They couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that someone would want to take off with someone else's car. For the longest time, you could enter most Japanese cars in the method you describe. I note that my late FB RX-7s have a hastily designed plate over the area where you can reach in from the outside and unlock the door.
Apparently they don't like to risk damaging cars that are destined for some rich Russian or Chinese guy, so smashing windows and peeling columns is bad form 
Before they started locking down the networks, they had devices to plug into the DLC that would spoof the "keyfob present" signal so people could just plug in and go. So some enterprising people would relocate the real DLC and put a dummy in its place that would discharge a high voltage capacitor into whatever device was plugged into it.
Forgive me for not updating, I won't get to work on it until Saturday.
If I can get the hood released, I can put the fuse in.
In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :
There's no way to get into the hole in the door with a coathanger or something to open it?
There may be a way to open the hood if the hood release goes through the wheelwell and not through the engine bay, if you can reach up and pull on the housing, that is sometimes enough to stretch things to pop the hood. I know for certain that it works on older Civics, and BMW X5s.
EDIT: iF YOU DO THAT make sure that the cable housing didn't pop out of the hood latch before you shut the hood again
Back to it today. I should have checked my watch, my estimate is between one and two minutes to get it open.
This is the locking rod.
This rod is the latch.
Now the hard part, getting it all back together.
