The left door handle has been cracked ever since I got the car so this was coming sooner or later. A year of daily use ain’t bad. Still, it came as a shock when, last Wednesday, I grabbed the handle, and the door didn’t come open. I’m a big dude (tall and fat), and there wasn’t room on the other wall to climb in through the passenger side. Somehow, I passed the acrobatics check it took to climb through the trunk and into the front seat. And I didn’t hurt my back at 32 years old. Truly a feat to behold.
I’ve already bought a handle, but it won’t be in til Thursday. I could run around with it like this for a week, but I’m not gonna.
Which means I’ll be driving my wife’s cargo ship for a few days.
I had a mid 80s Cutlass Ciera that had a driver door that wouldn’t open from the outside. Thankfully it was basically a bench front seat, so climbing though worked well enough. Later, I had a VW Jetta with a similar issue. Whenever it gold cold, the driver door would basically freeze shut. That was way harder for a big guy to climb into. I went through the back seat, and even the window, more than once.
Best of luck on the repairs.