Child safety locks on both back doors constantly stick, now one door won’t shut

Just wondering if anyone else experienced this unsafe and super annoying issue.
I have a 2002 PreRunner 3.4L V6. The child safety locks frequently engage, whether I want them to or not. Even just casually opening the back door will cause them to engage, so that when you shut the door, it doesn’t latch and “bounces” back because the lock is engaged. Usually if I manually push up on the darn lock it goes back into its hole and behaves. Occasionally, it won’t budge and I have to bungee-cord the door shut in order to drive, and this is not safe.
I have tried wire brush/lube/wd-40 to get it to cooperate but nothing helps.
Any advice is greatly appreciated. If anything I’d love to take the child safety locks out completely, as I don’t have any children to be locked inside.

 

the door latch is closed. you need to hold the handle open and open the latch with your finger.

 

But what causes this to happen? Why do the locks frequently unnecessarily engage, just from opening the door?

 

Latches might be gunked up with old grease/lube. Pull them out clean and re grease.

 

Needs lube..the non Wd40

 

That whole assembly is the Door Lock, the part you're having an issue with is the latch. It should stay in the open position until the door is shut.



I'm guessing that something is out of sync with the control links to either the outside handle or inside handle.

I wouldn't recommend WD40 - as it eventually attracts dirt and contaminants into the mechanism. You can remove the whole door lock assembly and try to clean it up, and inspect the control links.

It's a pretty tedious job. Just to get access in there, you'll need to remove the interior panel, and partially remove the vapor barrier. From there, you'll need to start working the clips which hold the control links. From recent experience, the guides which hold the links in various places are prone to breaking. If you break them, they need to be replaced. Once the links are free, you'll then be able to remove those three torx bolts holding the assembly in place.

Take pictures of how it's all routed before you begin to take things apart. The links will exit the vapor barrier in specific places, etc.. Do one side at a time, so if you get stuck, you can reference the other side.

Maybe google for rear door handle replacement videos which will give you a better visual idea of the internal components.

 

That’s the actual door latch as stated. The child safety latch just disables the interior pull cable.

 

I'm having the same problem on the right rear door latch on my 2003 DC TRD. The latch falls into the closed position, and the door gives an unpleasant bounce when shut. It's as simple as lifting the latch with a finger to get the door to close, but the problem is getting more frequent and it looks like I have a warm-weather project ahead.