Ok, I don't have a Neon myself, but a friend of mine is having trouble with his door lock, if he sticks the key in on the driver's side, he can rotate the key a complete 360 degrees, and not have the door open.

Anyway, I'm gonna help, I figured we'd have to replace the door lock itself, but I'm not a Neon guy and have no idea where to begin. I'm assume we have to pull the interior of the door off and from there it should be obvious. Anyone ever had this problem before? Any hints/tips ect?

Let me know ASAP, thanks

Dave

 

Oops, btw he has a 2000 Neon 4 door.

 

never heard of anithing like it

 

Yup, it's pretty obvious once you have the door off what you have to do. If you don't have the new lock assembly already, I recommend going to the nearest junkyard and ripping it out of a trashed Neon. REAL cheap....

- Chris

 

If the door still locks and unlocks with the interior button/switch, then it's going to be a problem with either the lock cylinder or the linkage. A linkage problem will be pretty obvious with the door panel off. Otherwise, suggest you pull the cylinder and take it to a locksmith. Think this will probably be less expensive than a new matched lock from the dealer.

Buying one from the salvage yard still requires a trip to the locksmith assuming you want it to work with the original key... so makes sense to check with the locksmith first to see if the original cylinder can be fixed inexpensively. In fact, if you've got a decent locksmith near by, you may want to run the car past them before you pull the panel. They're pretty good at diagnoising these sorts of problems through the key hole and will often look at it for free.