Front External Door Handles Sticking

[MichaelM]

I have a Gen 4 Prius Excel and over recent months the external door handles on both front doors have stopped returning to their shut positions.  They now have to be pushed the last 6mm or so to click shut.  The fault has got progressively worse as when it first started, the inertia of shutting a door made the handle finally click into place.  This no longer works.

I thought a bit of grease or WD40 would cure the problem but as the car is only 18 months old, I decided to let my Toyota dealer do this.

However, after examining the handles, the Service Dept. said the problem is more complex and they need to take the handles apart.  This may involve stripping parts of the doors.

On PriusChat an owner from Ireland recently reported the same problem but no one has offered an explanation.

 

Has anyone else come across this on a Gen 4 Prius?

[Catlover]

I would have been inclined to try the WD40 with the tube to get as near to the problem as possible.  If WD40 released it then I would have sprayed some Lithium grease (white grease) again using the thin tube.

[thecaretaker]

I have exactly the same problem. I applied a small amount of grease, but it hasn't fixed it. Both front door handles are affected. It is though both return springs have become weak. You have to sort of flick the handles to get them to go into place. I will mention it to my main dealer today as something tells me this could be a bit of a design fault....

[MichaelM]

5 minutes ago, thecaretaker said:

I have exactly the same problem. I applied a small amount of grease, but it hasn't fixed it. Both front door handles are affected. It is though both return springs have become weak. You have to sort of flick the handles to get them to go into place. I will mention it to my main dealer today as something tells me this could be a bit of a design fault....

This is really useful as I now know that the problem is not a one-off with my car and also that just greasing the mechanism does not cure it.   As it maybe a design or manufacturing fault I will ask my dealer to check with Toyota UK to see what they have to say. 

 

[thecaretaker]

I have added a short clip to YouTube showing the door handle issue. I did mention it when my car was serviced, but nothing fixed it.

 

[Gerg]

Hi,

I was looking at a 66 plate Prius yesterday that was for sale near me. It had 9000 miles on it and was suffering this sticky door handle problem.

This is almost certainly already known, but, from what I could see the outer door handle was coming to rest on the door lock barrel when the handle was released.

There is a cut out on the reverse of the door handle (that bit that you pull) and this is, presumably, supposed to centre itself over the protruding keylock mechanism to allow the handle to fully retract.

I would imagine that wear in the handle pivot (at the point closest to the front of the car) is allowing the two parts to misalign.

The dealer salesman seemed a traditional BS-artist type, so I didn't go any further investigating the purchase.

[thecaretaker]

Now the weather has warmed up, I don't seem to be having this problem.  

[Catlover]

Is it possible to get a bit of grease (or butter/marg) on the face of the 2 surfaces.   Interesting you say as the weather has warmed up the problem has decreased.  I would have thought if the temp was to make a differecce it would have made it worse not better (expansion).

[kithmo]

Mine's only done it once, one day when the weather was very hot, 27 deg C a couple of weeks ago.

[ian rooke]

Hi would not use butter/marg to free the door handle they can contain salt which could damage the paint or further damage the handle mechanism through acid attack 

[PeteB]

Could it not also collect dust/dirt and make the problem even worse?

For the record, my Gen 4 is 2 years old next month with 27k on the clock, no sign of this problem so far (touch wood!).  And it lives outdoors - I have a garage, but it's a stupid size, and the car would only just squeeze in with the mirrors retracted, but I'd have to sleep in it!

[Catlover]

I take the point about using marg/butter, but you had me running to the kitchen to see how much salt is in the tub we have. Its Lurpak, lightly salted, and contains .9gram in the 500gram tub,. Now I would not recommend spreading the whole 500g onto the door handle, just a little smidgen, which might amount to .001 gram or less of salt, hardly earth shattering.  And of course I would only use marg/butter if I didnt have a more appropriate substance available, like LARD (only joking, just in case someone else replies lard is full of corrosive acid or something). 

[kithmo]

It's probably best to use some sort of spay on dry lubricant, graphite based ? (or rub a pencil on it).

Mine seemed to be rubbing on the front of the keyhole, as if the handle had expanded and was too long.

Coincidentally, I had been playing with the lock all doors button from inside the day before and wondered if that had anything to do with it.

 

[MichaelM]

Rather than having the hassle of booking my Prius into a dealer for them to rectify the sticking door handles, I decided to try some silicone spray. 

I sprayed a small amount inside the handle mechanism near the door lock on the driver's door.

So far I think it is working and the handle has stopped sticking.

I will report again in a few days as I need to see if, as has been suggested,  the warmer weather has any bearing on the problem.

[MichaelM]

On 5/17/2018 at 10:28 PM, MichaelM said:

Rather than having the hassle of booking my Prius into a dealer for them to rectify the sticking door handles, I decided to try some silicone spray. 

I sprayed a small amount inside the handle mechanism near the door lock on the driver's door.

So far I think it is working and the handle has stopped sticking.

I will report again in a few days as I need to see if, as has been suggested,  the warmer weather has any bearing on the problem.

I can confirm that the handles are no longer sticking so it looks as though putting some silicone spray on the handle mechanism at the lock end (but NOT the lock itself) has solved the problem.  I don't know if there was a design or manufacturing fault in the mechanism but I am satisfied with this simple solution.

[kithmo]

For some strange reason, mine's never done it again , even in the recent warm spell, but if it does I'll probably do the same with the silicone spray 👍 .