850 Wagon Door Won't Lock

Help! We are getting ready to drive out of town for the weekend and our
'96 850 wagon's door won't stay shut. Previously I thought it had to do
with out rear door inside panel coming loose and maybe blocking the door
from closing all the way, because when I resecured it the door closed
fine.

Now, even after I've removed the lower half of the rear door panel, the
door still will not lock. I poked around in the locking mechanism but
can't see anything wrong. No, there's nothing blocking the catch either.

Any suggestions on how to fix this quickly, so the dog doesn't fall out
along the way?

Thanks.

 

I saw this once, and the rivets holding the halves of the latch
mechanism together had come loose. I took it out, and tried to figure
out what was wrong, but the mechanism was too complicated. I just
tightened the rivets with a hammer and punch and reinstalled hoping for
the best... and it worked fine afterwards.

 

Sorry for the late reply, but we also had a failure of the lock mechanism.
Simply had it replaced and all is well.

Gus

 

Well, I seem to have fixed it for the moment by simply poking inside the
mechanism and loosening the catch that lines up the latch. It was not
releasing the latch properly for some reason. After doing that it has
worked fine all weekend. Most vexing was passing three Volvo dealers
along the way, but all were closed. Will have it looked at later.