I'd like to add a little something to this thread, although I am not sure about its value.

This summer we went to Ukraine (the motherland of my wife) for vacations, spent about a month there. Usually, I do some service there, prices are cheap compared to Greece, so I had planned to do the regular service. Unfortunately, a few days before, my driver's door handle stopped working, it stayed proud of the door. When I took it to the shop where I had planned to have the service done, their body repair guy had a look and asked me if I wanted a new part installed or have it fixed.

Knowing about the problems with the handle carriers, I was surprised to hear there was a fix, so I told him to go ahead and fix it (if the fix didn't work, I could always install a new part for about $100).

So the guy took the door apart and removed the carrier. The little part that holds the axle in place, towards the rear end of the carrier was broken. And then I witnessed what people do, in countries where money are in short supply. The guy took the carrier to the bench and drilled a small hole on it. He then passed a piece of steel wire through that hole and through another opening on the carrier, twisted it with a pair of pliers and secured the axle in its place with that wire.

The handle worked just fine, although it was not sitting perfectly on the door. The cost was less than $10 for his work. My door is still like that, it works fine after a whole month, so I plan to leave it that way, until it breaks again.

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John Caradimas
2005 X5 3.0lt diesel
Facelift, Sport packet