A3 driver door won’t open. HELP!!

[Martyn85]

Hi all, I have a 2007 a3 sline sportback and today I went to get in the car and the driver door won’t unlock and I’m tearing my hair out just can’t seem to find what’s wrong. All other doors unlock and open perfect but drivers door won’t budge from inside or outside. It will be a real problem as the windows won’t even open and I need access through the window or door to get in and out of work. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks 

[WPAWS]

will the key in the lock not lock / unlock the door at all?

[Martyn85]

No that won’t work either 

[WPAWS]

thats strange have you tried some oil in the lock and jiggling the key about also oil the key and give it a go

[Martyn85]

Put some wd40 in the lock, didn’t put any on the key tho and haven’t tried wiggling it. I’ll give that a go 

[WPAWS]

i`m just thinking the lock has seized cos to be honest how often do we use our key to open the door when we have a fob, only time i have used mine is when my battery went flat

[Martyn85]

Just gave that a try with joy. Back to the drawing board. It’s strange because it opened fine when I went to work at half 5 this, went out to my car and half 9 and it wouldn’t open 

[WPAWS]

main thing is the door can now be opened with the key, you need a garage to confirm whats broken and what parts need replacing m8

[Martyn85]

Sorry that was no joy, door still not open. Got a mate having a look at it today I hope 

[WPAWS]

let us know if you get it open and how

[Martyn85]

Well here is the fault, broken wire but not a easy job. Didn’t do it myself had a mate to do it but he said what a b*****d or a job to do cut the door card to try and release the door but no joy so in the end he took the rear door off and released the front door with a screwdriver from the back. Not quite done it, ordered a new door card today and will hopefully be job done by Tuesday. Hope nobody else will get a problem like this because it’s real headwork lol! 

[Kevin H of Hampshire]

An Audi Q3 owner 2012 model from new.  We had this problem just this week of drivers door not opening from the outside, but from inside fine.

Courtesy of a (fairly time consuming) google search last night I found an easy potential solution that works not only on Audi's it said.

So I tried it this morning.... and hey presto - worked first time...brilliant so many thanks to the poster on that thread

"You have one person on drivers seat, one person outside drivers door - you time unlocking manually from the inside at exactly the same time as the person outside pulls the external door handle - door opens then slam the door shut with some force"

Worked a treat - for how long I don't know, and I don't claim to understand why - but something to do with nudging an exterior handle ratchet of some sort.