Having redeemed myself with my brotherhood, I felt like I was qualified to tackle the DHC replacement, so on this wet and cold Easter Sunday, I cracked into it....

After removing the old DHC, I cannot see much wrong with it (it's an eBay chapepie - has last over 5 years of daily use). The gears on the arm are a very loose mesh and have a lot of play and the cable seems a tad too long. Combine these two factors and opening the door had become very mucn hit or miss.

https://i.ibb.co/D9yzYwq/20240331-122432.jpg

The new Frey part certainly fits WAY better than the older part. I recall fighting with the eBay cheapie to get it to mount - the Frey part fits perfectly. A couple of things I did to it to ensure correct operation was to slightly shorten the cable...

Before...

https://i.ibb.co/vJYxs2F/20240331-114625.jpg

After...

https://i.ibb.co/hmPnRNL/20240331-114647.jpg

... and I added a zip tie to the pivot.

This was also a good chance to replace the home-made centre clip that I made when I found it was missing when I last replaced the DHC.

https://i.ibb.co/WzxBgMZ/20240331-122451.jpg

So nice to have a good working driver's door again!! :D

I'd never heard of Frey parts until now. What's the consensus on these?

Did I see correctly that cable length is adjustable!?

I can only vouch for the DHC.. but they do have a website... so that's a good start...

Frey Auto Parts | Home | Supplier of Mercedes Benz and BMW

Yep - the ball-end can be moved on the ferrule. Only a small amount...Most are like this - my old DHC wasn't though.

I dropped my wife off at departures and then drove around to the other side of the airport to park the X5 for a few days while we are out of town. I immediately realized as i got out of the car that the funny feeling I had was due to the fact that I forgot my wallet.

What I did for my x5 today was flog her like a rental car back to the house to get my wallet, and then back to the airport. Expensive mistake as I had to put her in a lot right by the terminal, rather than my normal monthly parking place. No drama from the X on her high speed run back and forth thankfully.

Recently went though the same situation dropping a friend at the airport. 80 minute round trip. Did it in about 70.

Hey Andrew,

I just found this image (from Attacking Mid) in your original AWR-fix post about the DHC...

https://xoutpost.com/attachments/x5-...fix-barrel.jpg

Ya must've forgotten about it! ;)

https://xoutpost.com/1205761-post76.html

I definitely didn't remember that tip good catch.

Haha the DHC expert "forgot" ;)