VW t5 sliding door woes. Help please!

I have a 55 plate T5 which has always had a slightly temperamental passenger door lock. Sometimes it would lock…sometimes not. The side door was always o.k though. But, since dismantling the van for some body work I’ve not been able to get the side door locks working properly again.
It shuts and locks just fine and when I push the button on the fob to unlock it the motor can be heard and felt and the button pops up…. but the door cannot be opened from the outside, though it will open from the inside completely normally, and after opening from the inside once it will then open from the outside every time, until it is locked again.
Grrrrr!
Has anyone any knowledge or experience of this? I’ve googled and judging by the number of forum posts on many different sites there is a huge number of different faults with t5 locks but I’ve not found any answers to this specific issue yet.

Passenger door or sliding door? I had a dodgy passenger door lock on our 54 plate T5, which eventually gave up the ghost completely, the locking unit was replaced by VW in the end as it ended up meaning an MOT failure

Something is catching under the door trim. If opening on inside cures the issue, one of the cables or links might be catching something after the refit.

If it was intermittent, then a new central door locking mechanism would be needed, but if you can replicate it, as you have done, I would say the physical connections to the interior door handle is snagging – just like you get when kids pull on the door before you can unlock, it won’t unlock.

I had an issue with the catch on the sliding door a bit of WD sorted it out.
http://imgbox.com/oNXXBaTl

Sorry IHN, I did go a bit off piste there didn’t I!
The problem is with the sliding door.
I’m not sure it’s an intermittent fault as such- it consistently opens from inside and out as long as it has first been opened from the inside. After unlocking it cannot be opened from the outside until it has been opened from the inside.

As fossy says first step is strip off the door card and check all connecting rods etc.

Thanks all. I’ll get the door card off at some point over the weekend and have another look. When I put the door back together I spent quite a while trying to work out what was going on but gave up in the end as I just needed it out of my mates body shop.

Having replaced all sorts of lock components in the door my central locking woes were traced to the junction box under the drivers seat. Check to see if it’s got wet.

Its a fault with the lock/deadlock by the sounds of it, when you open from the inside the mechanical action of opening the door is overriding the deadlock but unlocking it with the key isnt. Its not getting the signal to open from the van.

T5 locking issues often come from corrosion of the control unit or wiring under the seat, id hazard a guess that as its happened since you’ve messed with it its the lock itself. My first port of call would be checking everything is reassembled correctly, my bet would be if you’ve taken the door to bits you’ve bolted the contacts back on slightly incorrectly and they’re not lining up properly, this would be the simplest fix. Loosen them off slightly, close the door so they kind of self centre and see if that sorts it.

Check all the wiring and control box under the drivers seat for corrosion first, if all ok then multimeter on the door contacts you can get wiring diagrams online easily to check you’re getting the signal to the van side of the switch, then if you have that then its new lock module, £90 or so.