Ford explorer 1997 xlt, the inside door handle does not work

in the side of the door chases beside the lock there is one bottom on front of wheel round work only for children safety turn it off and the door will open from inside

It is unusual for both rear doors to have this problem. If they are seldom used they can "stick" however. If you have power door locks and you can see the knob moving when the switch is pressed, chances are the doors are not locked when "unlock" is pressed.

Make sure they are unlocked by pulling up firmly on the lock knob by hand. If that fails, the doors may just be "stuck". Have you tried pulling the inside handle and pushing outward on the door from the inside while a helper lifts the outside handle and pulls outward.

If the doors have "child safety locks" you should only be able to open door from the outside when the safety lock is on.

It is possible the latch mechanism closed after opening the door. Get a flat blade screwdriver and stand outside your truck, looking at the door latch area. you should see a small flat arm that is making a closed loop in the area where the door striker goes. Stick the screwdriver inside the loop and gently pry outward on the loop as you pull the door handle. That loop is actually like a tongue that should flip inwards towards the truck as you pull the handle. There are a few different ways you could possibly flip the latch back, depending on the exact configuration of the latch assembly. Usually on my wife's van we have to put the screwdriver through the loop from the outside and rest the tip on the door. Then, as we pull the handle, we move the handle of the screwdriver toward the vehicle which flips the latch back down so the door striker post can go inside the latch. I hope this helps and please rate my solution - I'll wait a little while to see if it works for you - if not let me know right away and I'll try to help you figure this out. Thanks for using fixya!!!

it appears you have a broken latch
the bad news is when your latch breaks like this you will end up destroying the interior door skin in order to get the door open

the good news is that almost any good garage can make the repair quickly

check the door handle in side door panel there is a rod that goes into the door handle that might have fallen out of it or more likely broken the door handles at a junk yard are about 5 dollars if you take off make sure it function that none of the teeth of the handle are broken and and make sure you have the right or left door handle it will be marked on inside of interior door handle . this handle slides forward towards the front of vehicle for removal then turn to remove rod from handle.

I have the same car, same problem. I've still not been able to fix it, despite taking the inside panels off the rear doors, checking the rods were seated, applying WD-40 to the lock mechanisms, and manually working the mechanism. Child locks are not engaged, but I tried putting them on and off too. Just won't open.

open the door panel and locate the lock. screws are usually found on the handle inside, clips under the panel.

the door lock actuator is defective, they get really hard to move when they go bad, that is why the difficulty with the key.

if you can open the door from the outside of the truck when you look at the backside of the door you should see a little opening for the child safety locks one way locks the door so it cant be opened from the inside the way other way unlocks the safety latch the door should be able to be opened from the inside and outside of the truck

1997 ford explorer awd child safety won't open from the inside can you help