Patent ID: 7559586

Claim:
A door lock apparatus for a vehicle comprising: a latch mechanism holding a door of the vehicle at a closed condition relative to a body of the vehicle; an inside open lever and an outside open lever activated in response to respective operations of a door handle provided inside the door and a door handle provided outside the door; a link member interposed between the latch mechanism and each of the inside open lever and the outside open lever and selectively operated between an unlock position and a lock position, the unlock position in which operations of the respective inside and outside open levers are transmitted to the latch mechanism, and the lock position in which the operations are not transmitted to the latch mechanism; a drive unit activated to switch a position of the link member between the unlock position and the lock position; and a lock operation lever configured to transmit a driving power source of the drive unit to the link member and including an active lever operatively associated with the drive unit and a sub lever operatively associated with the link member, the sub lever having a common rotational axis with the active lever and configured to operate integrally with the active lever when the link member is switched to the lock position and to cooperate with the active lever via a biasing member when the link member is switched to the unlock position, the lock operation lever being an assembly containing the active lever, the sub lever and the biasing member, wherein the sub lever includes an engagement portion and the active lever includes an engaged portion by which the active lever and the sub lever are prevented from dropping along the rotational axis when the active lever and the sub lever are at an assembled state, the engagement portion is a protrusion extending radially from the rotational axis, and the engaged portion is a recess opening to the rotational axis and engageable with the protrusion, the protrusion and the recess are engaged with each other by rotating one of the active lever and the sub lever around the other of the active lever and the sub lever, the active lever further including a stopper extending axially to stop relative rotation between the active lever and the sub lever, and a projected portion of the stopper being engageable with the sub lever, and the recess, which serves as the engaged portion, includes a portion extending in a direction orthogonal to the rotational axis of the sub lever, the protrusion, which serves as the engagement portion of the sub lever, is supported in the axial direction between the extending portion and a main body of the active lever, the stopper formed at the active lever includes a sidewall portion having a surface parallel to the axial direction of the active lever and a bottom portion extending from the sidewall portion in the direction orthogonal to the axial direction of the active lever, and the sub lever is supported between the main body and the bottom portion in the axial direction.