Originally Posted by andrewwynn

don't' replace your door handle carrier; almost certainly it broke in such a way that it's a relatively easy repair: Yanking Door Open Any Ideas? - Bimmerfest - BMW Forums

scroll to post #20, where i detail how to repair with a piece of 16ga spring steel.

It's a design defect that causes these to break; rather than disengage the lock mechanism when the door is locked, bmw chose to 'block' the mechanism; sadly that little blocking arm gets stuck in gummy residue over time and the door stays locked when all indications are it is unlocked. The user does what any user would; pull harder; and they break the hinge on the pot metal bracket.

If you ever notice a 'click' slightly delayed after you unlock your door, that's the signal that the locking bar is 'taking its sweet time' to move to the unlocked position. If you ever pulled and it didn't open but a second pull worked, also a good chance this is why; 100x more likely when ambient temperature is cold; owners from cold climate used to their door seals icing up will assume that is what happened and pull really hard, breaking the hinge.

Fortunately the way the hinge is designed makes it relatively easy to repair; unfortunately the videos are no longer hosted by tapatalk but the pictures are there; i think i used a drill bit to make a little more room but with relative simplicity i wrapped a few wraps of steel wire around the hinge pin where the hinge broke. Not only was it a free repair, it's many times stronger than the original part because not only steel, it's flexible so not brittle.

PM me I can probably find my original unit, i could send it to you you could perform the fix and have a working unit before you take the door apart (just in case of the 1% chance it was something else that broke). It was a little tedious to get the stiff metal wire bent around in circles while holding the hinge together, it would be easier to perform the repair with a second set of helper hands, also there are spring-steel cable-straps that would probably work in mere seconds, i just didn't want to take the chance that i would have to re-do the tear-down of the door in case it moved or something.