My friend's 2003 X5 won't open from the inside. I took of the door panel, and the cable looks fine. However, it must be loose. When I pull on the handle, there is too much slack and by the time I've completely pulled on the handle, the cable hasn't moved enough to disengage the latch.

Is there a way to tighten up the cable? The end of the cable has a plastic piece that clips it into the actual door handle. It looks like the cable should simply be pulled by the handle lever that tugs on it. I can feel it tugging, but there is a lot of slack at the beginning of the handle pull. Hope this makes sense? Anyone know what to do? Thanks!

Did you get this fixed? I had this problem on a previous car and it turned out the cable contact point had bent, bent it back and it was fixed, but I was careful not to pull too hard on it from then on.

Is it a rear door? Is the lock in child mode?

I took the door apart, and found a cable routing point (plastic) that was broken, making the cable just a TAD too loose. All on a car with 28k miles. Can you believe it?