Door lock cables

I am new to fixing Beetles so take my advice lightly, but I recently replaced my door latch assembly on both doors. I have a 2003 Cabrio and thay door latch assembly has a special auto-adjust feature that moves the window up and down when opening the door that you don't have but I think after that it will be the same. You have a long cable going to the inside door handle and a short cable going to the outside door handle. Surprised that both are broke at the same time? Have you taken the interior trim off to see what you have? Here is what I learned.

1) Door not opening with the handle is most likely a mechanical issue and not electronic.
2) Nothing wrong with replacing the door latches but when I ordered my door latches for both sides, neither came with the short cable or long cable that runs to the outside door handle and inside door handle. I had to take the cables off of the old latch and replace onto the new latch. It is easy to do.
3) I had a plastic guard I had to drill out the rivet and also move to the new door latches.
4)After removing trim, I took the inner cover loose but did not completely remove from the door and was able to remove door latch by sliding it out at the end.
5) I had no key hole for the passenger door so my key cylinder was a dummy.
6) I have a high mileage car and i still didn't think the door latch cables were bad. So, your desire to buy one may be unfounded.

I would recommend looking at your situation and figuring out why both mehchanical cables are not working. You may not need parts if both cables have come loose. If you can't get the door open at all, this is a challenge to get very far though.

Both cables are intact and in place, as I managed to get the door card off and the door open.
Both the internal and external handles did open the door, but over time the outer handle got harder and harder to open,
until it got to the point the door wouldnt open. Afterwards, same happened with the internal handle. Hence why I thought
the cables were stretching. Having ridden motorbikes all my days I am all too aware of cables stretching!!
Is this case on the beetle? I dont know.

I found part numbers for both cables, and although the longer one is readily available, the short one less so. I ordered a short
one from the US on ebay and the seller has just cancelled the order.
So I have ordered a replacement lock mechanism, I will replace it and the longer cable and see what difference it makes.

Thanks

I am with Thejarhead on this, it is probably not the cables. One thing I thought of though, is that the small cable going to the outside handle is only about 50MM in length so you wouldn't get much stretch with that distance. However, the small cable has a small plastic head on it. That head has plastic grooves that fit into the outside handle lift. I could see those grooves getting stripped or mangled and then the cable wouldn't work. Your new cable would fix that unless the grooves were mangled in the metal part of the handle. I used an oring hook (90 degree) to grab the small cable plastic head when reinstalling the door latch assembly and stretch it into the grooves on the outside handle to insure it was as tight as I could get it. You don't want any slack in it.

Good to know you have the door open. I still find it odd that both cables have failed. Makes me think your door latch has something broken where both cables attach. Will be curious what you find once that comes out. You could take that out before your parts get in to see what you are up against. Let us know what you find.