Drivers Door won't open - after changing handle carrier

[shedtastic]

Originally Posted by glassjoe

Well, I thought I had fixed my issue by resetting the Bowden cable but it was a positive negative. After resting the cable I could open and close the door from both the inside and outside, but as soon as I locked the doors with my key FOB or the central locking button and then unlocked them, I could no longer open the door from the inside or outside. I was thinking WTF???

So, after tearing everything back apart and removing the lock actuator I hooked it up to car power and cycled the lock a few times holding the exterior door handle mechanism approximately where it resides when everything was hooked up and noticed an internal latch wasn't releasing. As I slowly extended the mechanism it would release. So after scratching my head for a second or two, I figured out the problem. The damn cable that came with the Chinese door carrier I replaced was shorter than the OEM cable which wasn't allowing the door actuator mechanism to fully extend allowing the door to be opened. So I yanked the new carrier out of the car and, luckily, I still had the broken OEM carrier and compared the two cables and sure enough, the Chinese crap I got from Amazon has a cable assembly that was about a half-inch shorter. Lucky for me, I was able to remove the cable from the OWM unit and replace it on the new unit and after getting everything back together again, the door functions normally in all scenarios.

I was really close to buying a new door actuator and am glad I didn't because the OEM is $200+. So BUYER BEWARE if you buy an other than genuine BMW door carrier because the cable might not be long enough. I had this issue on my left rear door so I'm not sure if other are affected.

Hope this helps someone!

^^ This, I think explains my issue. I've replaced my front right door handle carrier with an eBay $26 part (seller = "Partstation2015") and it seemed to work. (Though,, as others have noted, the doorhandle was kind of 'hair trigger', in that it released the door in the first 3mm of handle movement, which didn't feel very safe.)
I know, I know, $26 delivered part, what did I expect...

I was about to re attach the door panel and put my tools away, but I thought I would check that the door locked and unlocked properly. So I reattached the battery, shut the doors and cycled the door locks. The passenger door did not lock. I pushed the 'snib' (plastic but that would normally poke through the top of the door panel) down to lock it, and it then wouldn't unlock. Pulling the interior handle (well the exposed cable, since I hadn't reattached the door panel) would not unlock the door either..

Much frustration, and I'll admit, mild panic.

Detatching the balljoint on the end of the cable, and the door would unlock again. I think the cable is too short,I'm going to try what you suggested. (Back in 2018..)

[shedtastic]

Originally Posted by shedtastic

I think the cable is too short,I'm going to try what you suggested. (Back in 2018..)

So I definitely see a difference in the cable length, but I also now see that the casting is wrong where the exterior handle bolts on:









So I've ordered the proper part now since even swapping the cable over is not going to result in a good Q result..

[andrewwynn]

I have had to tweak the cable length before when swapping parts if the cable is slightly too tight it will
not reset the latch and it won’t grab to unlatch the door. if the distance needed is just one or 2 mm you can bend a piece of metal that holds the end of the cable

[shedtastic]

Originally Posted by andrewwynn

I have had to tweak the cable length before when swapping parts if the cable is slightly too tight it will
not reset the latch and it won’t grab to unlatch the door. if the distance needed is just one or 2 mm you can bend a piece of metal that holds the end of the cable

Yup, I'd have been good with this approach (and in fact swapped the cable over) but once I realized the handle didn't fit properly (which explains why it kept twisting awkwardly) I gave up with the eBay part.

I will say that I am pretty impressed with the construction of the eBay part for the money, I really think that they just supplied me one for a different BMW model.

[andrewwynn]

I've had to make minor Dremel adjustments


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[shedtastic]

Well I still had an "oh crap" moment: I've now fitted the BMW OEM door handle carrier & it is clear that this one was at least designed to fit. Handle works perfectly. I had to bodge a bit because the attachment points for the exterior handle were now shot (loose where the plastic pin fits in at one end, and the metal pin at the other end I must have pulled loose by over tightening the nut.. doh) from repeated removal and refitting with the earlier incorrect carrier part..

But (fortunately before I'd refitted the interior trim panel) the door wouldn't lock / unlock when I use the central locking button. As if the lock actuator was dead.

Turned out to be (seemingly) a loose connection at the electric window switch, so worth checking that if you have the same issue.. All sorted now.

[andrewwynn]

Good point: the actuator goes through the door switch assembly so for example door lock won't work if the door switch is removed for any reason. So, for testing purposes you need to attach the door switch assembly. I do that outside of the door panel before reassembly.

Also: for for and finish there is some finesse with the DHC for sure. It has a convex surface that mates with a concave surface of the door inside. I like to leave the screws both quite loose and wiggle the part until it finds the "fingerprint" of th door.

Be very careful witg non OEM parts. The spring has less than two mm clearance to the window glass and I've put in DHC that the spring actually scraped on the glass. I cut the end to fit but it's a warning. You can. See pic where I mentioned the fix. I think in my awr-fix dhc thread