What a piece of shit. The side sliding door locked close and I could not
get it
open. I took it to Crown Dodge dealer in Venture Ca and they could not
get it open either. They charged me $140 "diagnostics". The "mechanic"
only worked on it for less than an hour. Their estimate was $560 to take
the door off.  Plus parts. Some of the door parts are over $180.

The RAM Promaster is the Fiat Ducata in the rest of the world.
I can't believe they would put out such crap as it has been around
for years. However fiat used to mean Fix It Again Tony.

I think the RAM promaster sold in the US is made in Mexico so
it could be a quality control issue. A lot of people on the Internet
are having similar problems with the sliding door.

The design of the door is crap as well. The door handle is on the front
of the door and the latch is on the back end of the door. That means a bunch
of long cables are need to operate the latch. This is the same on most
sliding side doors. If these cables are just slightly the wrong length
you are in for some real bad trouble.

The right way to design the door is put the handle on the back of the
door so it is close to the latch.

There is no shop manual from Haynes as far as I can tell.
The shop manual from Dodge, if they have one, is probably a couple
of hundred dollars. They don't want anybody competing with their stupid
mechanics at the  dealers. I tried everything to get the door unlocked
and nothing worked. There may be a trick I don't know about.
To get the door off you MUST unlock it first.

  I gave up and cut into the latch area. I am cutting the latch pins
with a dremal tool with a tungsten carbide tool bit but it is going very
slowly. Been working on it for a couple of days.

I'll  report more when I actually get the f@#$% door off.

Paul Lamar

-----------------------------------------------------------

I finally got the door off. I had to butcher the remote lock actuator
With a Dremal carbide cutting tool. It cost $182 for a new one.

I am not going to replace it. It was made by a company in Germany
by the name of BROSE that does not mean the cables were made there
as well. If they were made there my opinion of German engineering
just dropped a couple of notches. I could design a better latch in
my sleep and it would not cost more than $10. I would not be so stupid
as to put the latch on one end of the door and the handle on the other end.
Traditional ways of actuating distant devices is use steel rods. They
push as well as pull.


https://www.brose.com/de-en/products/technology-for-vehicle-doors-and-liftgates/

Apparently the Mercedes Sprinter uses the same parts.

To 700 subscribers around the world.

Paul Lamar

Here is my new Chinese sliding door latch. $2 at Harbor freight. Works like a charm.

My advice is take out the stock Brose latch while you can still get the door open
and replace it with this.


BTW I had a Doge Caravan for ten years with 300K miles on it. No problem with
the sliding doors. Then I had a Honda Odyssey with sliding doors for ten years
and 200K miles no problem with the sliding doors.

German engineering BS.

Paul Lamar

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