# Permanent damage from frozen car doors?

**URL:** <https://community.cartalk.com/t/permanent-damage-from-frozen-car-doors/42036>\
**Category:** Maintenance/Repairs\
**Tags:** pontiac, sunfire\
**Created:** [January 7, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/permanent-damage-from-frozen-car-doors/42036 "2010-01-07T20:56:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![gothsimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9fc348/32.png) [@gothsimmons](https://community.cartalk.com/u/gothsimmons)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/permanent-damage-from-frozen-car-doors/42036/1 "2010-01-07T20:56:55Z")

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The doors in our 1998 Pontiac Sunfire froze shut a week or two ago and my husband was able to get them open with a lot of forcing, pulling, shouting, and a certain kind of language. However, since then we have not been able to get into the driver’s side door at all. It opens easily from the inside, but won’t budge from the outside. Is it possible that he damaged something in trying to force the door to hard? And if so can something be done short of making him climb thru from the passenger seat (it’s his car)?

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**Author:** ![Beadsandbeads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@Beadsandbeads](https://community.cartalk.com/u/Beadsandbeads)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 12:51am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/permanent-damage-from-frozen-car-doors/42036/2 "2010-01-08T00:51:59Z")

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There is no telling what happened until you pull off the inside door panel and look around. Keep the snow cleared from the top of the car so this does not happen as easily.

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**Author:** ![the\_same\_mountainbike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@the\_same\_mountainbike](https://community.cartalk.com/u/the_same_mountainbike)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/permanent-damage-from-frozen-car-doors/42036/3 "2010-01-08T00:53:33Z")

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Yup. If it opens easily from the inside but won’t open from the outside it’s a sure bet that something broke. He’ll need to remove the inside door panel to find out what.