H
Hotel California
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Been investigating how to open the rear door from the inside the Cali in case the outside handle should fail opening the door.
As there was just recent a question picking up a older tread regarding the about same isssue made me wonder what i would do in case it happend to me on the road/trip.
Link to older tread:
https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/open-rear-door-from-the-inside.7246/
Afther reading the older tread where @briwy showed he attatched a metal wire to the hidden lever behind the doorpanel comming out next to the pulling handle , i tried thesame but found it hard to adchive and rather messy looking , that wire hanging loose on the panel , probally never to any use as the odds are little it ever accures to be faulty , but still worth to concider.
My thoughts went more in the direction on how to acces the lever from inside the Cali with the folding chairs (and even the topper and external windscreencover fitted in between the chairs ) .
One can unload the rear accesing the sliding door and sliding the benchseat fully forward .
Then crawl under the parcel shelf (or unload thatone also) .
The main problem is that the storage bag containing the seats is a bit in the way to reach in , when the rear door is open one can easy reach in the point standing next the Cali but with the door closed and at that time being unable to open you need very long and small fingers...
First thing is you need to open the zipper on the storage bag .
The start would be on right sitting in the rear looking to the rear.
Best thing to do is attatching a piece of cord to the zipper as the middle lower part of the zipper is hard to follow by hand disappaering underneeth and using a cord one can open the zipper blind just pulling the cord.
Then fiddle a bit to open the acces flap to the seat storage end then you can see the point where the doorlatch is hidden behind , a round rubber cap in the bottem on the door .
Undo the rubber cap located in the middle where the door catch is , partly hidden behind the seat storage .
And puch down the shiny metal latch with the small hole in .
The door should open ....
All this not very easy to do and probally/ never need to do but still a perfect way to do this without damaging anything , as in the older tread in the link above some where mentioning drilling a hole thru the door from the outside....omg!
When standing behind the Cali door open and seats out of the storage is is much easyer to spot the location....i first undid a part of the storage bag resulting looking at this but attacting a cord or wire needs taking out the whole rear trim and seat storage bag with i did not proceed further and worked from the inside as discribed above.
Hope you (and i ) never have to use this methode , still some usefull info to share!
As there was just recent a question picking up a older tread regarding the about same isssue made me wonder what i would do in case it happend to me on the road/trip.
Link to older tread:
https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/open-rear-door-from-the-inside.7246/
Afther reading the older tread where @briwy showed he attatched a metal wire to the hidden lever behind the doorpanel comming out next to the pulling handle , i tried thesame but found it hard to adchive and rather messy looking , that wire hanging loose on the panel , probally never to any use as the odds are little it ever accures to be faulty , but still worth to concider.
My thoughts went more in the direction on how to acces the lever from inside the Cali with the folding chairs (and even the topper and external windscreencover fitted in between the chairs ) .
One can unload the rear accesing the sliding door and sliding the benchseat fully forward .
Then crawl under the parcel shelf (or unload thatone also) .
The main problem is that the storage bag containing the seats is a bit in the way to reach in , when the rear door is open one can easy reach in the point standing next the Cali but with the door closed and at that time being unable to open you need very long and small fingers...
First thing is you need to open the zipper on the storage bag .
The start would be on right sitting in the rear looking to the rear.
Best thing to do is attatching a piece of cord to the zipper as the middle lower part of the zipper is hard to follow by hand disappaering underneeth and using a cord one can open the zipper blind just pulling the cord.
Then fiddle a bit to open the acces flap to the seat storage end then you can see the point where the doorlatch is hidden behind , a round rubber cap in the bottem on the door .
Undo the rubber cap located in the middle where the door catch is , partly hidden behind the seat storage .
And puch down the shiny metal latch with the small hole in .
The door should open ....
All this not very easy to do and probally/ never need to do but still a perfect way to do this without damaging anything , as in the older tread in the link above some where mentioning drilling a hole thru the door from the outside....omg!
When standing behind the Cali door open and seats out of the storage is is much easyer to spot the location....i first undid a part of the storage bag resulting looking at this but attacting a cord or wire needs taking out the whole rear trim and seat storage bag with i did not proceed further and worked from the inside as discribed above.
Hope you (and i ) never have to use this methode , still some usefull info to share!
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