AWR-Fix: Door Handle Carrier Permanent Fix*

[andrewwynn]

I realized something on the first two repair jobs I did for a broken door handle carrier: they broke exactly the same way and in large part due to a design flaw.

The flaw is this: the designers decided to incorporate feedback to the handle when locked (the handle resists lifting). The problem is that the little bar that blocks the handle gets slow in lubrication that gets gummy and slows the bar keeping the handle locked down when the door is unlocked.

UPDATE: when repairing a door actuator I realized that it will freeze and will not move, setting up another method to break your DHC. I will be making a thread describing the situation soon. The details are in another thread already but I'll make a clean new one.

(For about a week before I broke mine I noticed a second click about a second after unlocking the door I later learned was the blocking bar slowly moving into the unlocked position)

This is especially hazardous when this happens in frosty locations. When you live in a cold climate you are accustomed to the door seal freezing stuck where you need to tug extra hard to break the seal, the problem is the door latch is unlocked, the door seal is likely not frozen but the door handle is blocked.

When you tug on the handle thinking the door is stuck you put many times the normal force on the hinge of the door handle carrier. Enough times and fatigue failure will cause the pot metal to fail.

The good news is most often this break can be repaired with a zip tie! The better news is you can almost certainly shots L avoid the break in the first place of you cut the nub of the blocking bar when you put in a repaired or replaced door handle carrier.

I don't recommend OEM DHC. get a knock off that has good star review on Amazon etc and swap the Bowden cable from the OE part because the cables are kaarap from the China parts.

Here are the photos from my last DHC repair:


Here is the weakest link on the door handle carrier. Most will break right here











So here is the carrier I'm about to install. I've reenforced the weakest link with a nylon zip tie (don't have my stainless ones with me).

By placing the lock where I did it multiplies the strength it should hold if the pot metal breaks. I will try to do a test with the one I'm about to remove.

"I haz success"!

I was able to confirm that the double lock disconnects the lock mechanism so there is no need for the blocking bar that prevents lifting the handle when the door is locked.

I cut the little tab off that has been causing so much grief.


Red is the lock bar, blue is the tiny tab that actually blocks the handle when locked.


Blue is the tab and yellow is the part of the handle that is blocked


Blue arrow pointing to the empty space where the tab used to be.

So now it's as it should have been from the beginning and how BMW decided to change them to on the current cars.

The handle pulls up but the cable pulls on a deactivated lock. It "dry fires" and does nothing.

I'm sure you could still break something but the odds of breaking a handle carrier with my modifications will be reduced 90-95%.

I left the zip tie on figuring no reason to remove.

I was going to just remove the entire lock bar but I'm not sure if it has other functions (lock the key cylinder in) so I just cut off the offending part.

*Re: permanent fix; there's always a chance you could still break a DHC but the majority of unnecessary stress will eliminated with this trick.