How do I fix my exterior door handle on my 04 Nissan Maxima. It works sometimes, and the interior door handle works.

2 or 4 door? If 2, you should still be able to use key on exterior, and I don't think they have a child lock on 2 doors, so I'm guessing 4. With car unlocked, can't you open rear doors from outside even with child lock on?

Mostly clips, screws hold the handle on and bezel around it has clips that can carefully be pried off.. A door panel tool should be used to enage and pry panel clips off

1) Remove the plug inside the interior armrest and remove phillips screw.
2) Remove armrest and two screws that hold door panel to door frame.
3) Pop the outer cover off the interior door handle.
4) Remove the interior lock knob and remove door panel by popping out tabs connected to door frame and lifting up off of window ledge.
5) Remove the two nuts holding exterior handle in place.
6) Disconnect the L shaped linkage from the handle. The trick to getting the L shaped linkage into the new handle is to feed L shaped metal pole through hole in door where exterior handle was, leaving the lower end of this linkage in its slot.
7) Feed the end of L shaped pole through the plastic 'hinge' in new handle by folding the hinge over and pushing the end of the L through both sides of the plastic hinge at once. slide the lower loop of the plastic hinge down the L shaped pole to secure pole to handle.
8) Place new handle into door and reverse the process to reinstall interior panel.

Hope this helps Tim

I just replaced this on my 95. Past the hole in the door there should be a up-side down L shaped metal pole, but that pole can get lost inside the door and you have to search around with maybe a coat hanger to fish it into place. Once you find it grab it with a needle nose pliers and get the new handle at the same time, then pry and hook the L shape in to the eye-let of the new door handle. Once you have hooked the handle to the metal L pole, then you have 2 metal shoulder poles to slide into the hinging part of the new handle.

Interior or exterior handle? Remove the door panel first. They make a special tool for removing the window crank, but usually you can get it off with a screwdriver. There is a little clip under the crank that needs to be removed first. Then remove the door handle itself, this has a screw in it. Then pull the panel off. With the window in the fully down position or the up position you should be able to get to the handle itself for the exterior. If it's an interior handle just remove that without taking the door handle off. This is all pretty self explanatory once you see it.

You have a problem with the linkage that goes from the inside handle to the door mechanism. You need to take off the door lining and make an inspection. It could be a broken clip, spring, retainer or a little over centre mechanism that has seized up. Should be an easy fix once you can see whats happening with the door liner off.

the only way to fix handle is to replace it.not to difficult.

hate to tell you.. only way involves destroying door panel to get inside to find problem....

you can do this. you have to remove inside trim panel for access. if you still need to do, I will send you repair steps. let me know