98 320 - door lock issue

[Angella]

A friend has asked me to look into this for him...

He picked up the car a couple weeks ago from the valet across the street from our office - and the door lock wasn't working properly (at least it didn't look like it was...). While all of the other locks were raising, the drivers side was not...

when he realized that the door was indeed opening, he reach in and pulled the little lock piece right out... no longer attached.

Does anyone know where I can find a diagram of the door and locks? Or if this is perhaps the vac style (no threads visible). He knows he should have gone back to them immediately, but was traveling and now feels it may be too late... besides, it may have just been it's time to go.

Thanks for any info you can provide!

[blindside.AMG]

The little lock piece does thread into a metal staff that's attached to the door latch assembly. It's possible that the valets just unscrewed it and then couldnt find out how to put it back on. If you take a flashlight and look through the hole you should be able to see the little staff with threads. If you take a pocket screwdriver (or maybe a coat hanger if you don't have one) you should be able to see it and move it over, then just thread in the lock piece. If you can't see the staff then you'll probably have to remove the door panel to find it.

[Angella]

we aren't seeing any threads on it (I'm thinking they should be on the inside of the lock/pin piece...) but I could check again on monday.

I thought I had heard that some different style / vac locks were used for some period of time.