Broken Outside Door Handle Fix

[Isambard]

Originally Posted by tonycajjo

they all brake there, i was fed up when my drivers side quit shortly after replacing..

Not necessarily old chap! Here's where mine was broken..

[justben]

Originally Posted by 1stE53

Yes, strange stuff happened to me too. I simply unplugged the power to the window/lock box and plugged it in again in a different order. I can't remember what order I plugged the wires back in but after the third time I plugged the unit back in, everything worked. Like a reset.

THANK YOU!! I will try it tomorrow.

[ninekrpm]

Thanks to OP and everyone else. Had the same problem this week on the driver side. Took two hours, but successfully replaced the carrier.

[1stE53]

next week when the passenger's side breaks, mine did it that way, you will be able to change it in under an hour!

[PersonaNonGrata]

Originally Posted by ninekrpm

Thanks to OP and everyone else. Had the same problem this week on the driver side. Took two hours, but successfully replaced the carrier.

[Russianblue]

on the way to Hendrick BMW to pick up my $156 carrier, i got to thinking about tonycajjo's post. incidentally, i think the way Hendrick funds the NASCAR team is through the retail parts counter. everything is almost exactly BMW list PLUS 30%.

anyway, i didn't have any piano wire, but i DID have some Magical Harbor Freight Safety wire and a super high quality Harbor Freight safety wire twister!

Step 1) observe PATHETIC design, misuse of resources, brainiacs missing the forest for the trees.



2) Carefully drill two small holes through and through



3) thread HF safety wire




4) twist with fervor and abandon



5) test unit. observe handywork



6) observe handywork again. shoot bird to dealer next time pass by.




7) repeat process in 12 months!


kidding. i don't know if i will have to repeat or not. it works like new. over 50% of the project time was spent trying to get the STUPID hex bolt back in for the door lock thing. complete hell. i think i finally cross threaded it.

seriously this DID save me probably $400 at the dealer. i was pretty proud of myself...even though i might be crying here soon. but i think it'll hold for quite a while. i took the time to dynamat the door too. it's SUPER solid in there now.

[sweetbabu1]

So last week my passenger-side front door was acting funny, would stick closed every other day. Pain in the ass when you are dropping off your teenage daughter at school. then the door stuck closed all together. no lock, window, or mirror. Spoke to the service tech and he thought it might be a bad switch. since I know the parts guy very well at the dealer he cut me a break and charged me $75 for a new door module/switch. since you cannot return electrical parts it was a shot in the dark, no dice and now I own a new switch.

Took the X home and tried and tried and tried to do the unlock with the 10 inch wire, no success. Took it to my indi and they said they could get the door panel off no problem and that is seems more like an acuator problem. well they got the door panel off, reversed the polarity of the switch and opened the door. they replaced the acuator but nothing. no lock/unlock or mirror, however, the window worked from the passenger switch only not the drivers side. Next thing was to try a reset to see if maybe the acuator was not being recognized. Unhooked the battery and waited 20 mins. Nothing again but window operation from passenger switch. Mind you this was an all day event to this point. they left the door panel off secured all the parts and off to the dealer i was going to go.

turned the X over and rough idle then nothing, cranked, cranked, and cranked and nothing. Now i'm pissed. The dealer was holding a loaner for me but they were closing in an hour. Called the service tech and he thought maybe the indi triped the alarm. not sure how other then when they hooked up a battery to the old switch to open the door. so now I need the X towed in. The indi payed for a flatbed to pick me and the X up to go to the dealer. waited 45 mins for the tow truck but the dealer would wait for me they had a new 2011 535X waiting when I got there. It has 12 miles on it and loaded, but I digress. In any event got to the dealer and they would look into the initial issue for me, the door, and now the no start.

The following day the service tech calls me and says that my battery was dead do to all the cranking so they had to jump it, started right up but it had a slight rough idle. first the door was do to a corroded plug that goes into door from the body, must have gotten water into it somehow and it shorted out. need a new wiring harness for the door, had to order it not in stock. then he dropped the bomb on me that i needed a new fuel pump and that most likely was causing the idle issue. mind you the car ran fine except for rough idle here and there and the lurching everyone experiences. so how much is this now going to cost, with all the work, parts and taxes i am looking at $1,300.00. mind you this is discounted otherwise it was $2,200.00.

Well i said go ahead what choice do I have, well that's when it started snowing and was told they can't get orders do to the weather and that I needed to wait until tomorrow since the dealership would also be closed today. so at least I have been driving a new 5 and love it, solid car and handles well in bad weather. Hope to get my X back tomorrow. the only good thing was that the indi did not charge me for any of the time and the acuator was an OEM part and cost me $100 bucks.

[Isambard]

Very nice job Russianblue! It will be interesting to see how long your fix will last-longer than a new one?

I too took longer to get the lock bolt back in that to do the rest of the job, not to mention the fear of cross-threading the lock! I dropped the original bolt inside the door, but luckily had the one from the new carrier still left! What a PITA that little sh*t was!

[Russianblue]

wanna here something funny? i called at say...10AM on Saturday to the dealership and they put the new carrier on hold for me. i got the idea to fix it myself on the way to pick up the new one...turned around drove back home.

in the midst of my repair, the dealership called and asked if i still needed the part. i said no. he said, "good, because we have another customer here with the same problem".

i got a kick out of that.

if it holds for one year it's worth it to me to not get raked over the coals by the dealer.

the car used to be my dad's. after i fixed it, he told me he's already had the driver's side carrier replaced. it's really not excusable when you have a computer that runs electronic fuel injection and can adjust for any number of external variables to make the engine run perfectly, but you can't design a simple door pull.

[StartX5]

Russianblue, I replaced my driver side door handle carrier last week for 2 hours and $119.00 for part. I wish you posted this a day early