Hello! After two years of ownership, I have noticed the door card is no longer held to the exterior panel by the upper bolt. The mounting hole appears to have torn. The hole appears to be made of a dense foam. I have noticed through reading other threads that it may be a sign that the airbag had gone off, ripping the hole. I have contacted "Suncoast" and was told that a new panel can be manufactured for $1500. Scouring my local wrecking yard, I can get a similar panel (panel in question contains memory switches when my model does not) for $78. Looking over salvaged parts on "Ebay" I can spend anywhere from $120- $360. I have only reached out to one moderator and was told that it didn't appear to have the same issue as my panel. He did not seem confident. I would prefer to not go down those roads, but will if i have to. That being said, I am looking to correct the issue to prevent water damage. Anyone have any suggestions on ways to make a new mounting hole? Open to any suggestions with the exception of those I have described above.
perhaps a fibreglass/plastic repair kit may help?
can try to mould a patch panel...but you would need to be a little handy with it to be able to do it.
otherwise the scrap item sounds decently priced...
do check the door clips while you're at it - you may need to get some door clips too. they're pretty fragile.
I would guess that someone tried to remove the panel without knowing that bolt was there, and ripped the hole out.
I agree with eyeofthetiger, I would try to patch the area, or glue on something thin and strong to cover the entire exposed part.
I had a similar issue with my passenger side door card; it seems the eyelet broke in exactly the same manner as yours. I repaired the eyelet using some two part epoxy putty; I believe it was JB Weld PlasticWeld. It comes in a stick; you knead the two parts together into a malleable paste which I then wrapped around to recreate the missing portion of the eyelet. Leave a little bit of overlap with the non-broken part so that it's got something to bite on to; you can always sand it down later if you find you used too much and things aren't sitting flush. Three years on and it's still holding, even with an eight year old grabbing the door card from that corner...
I would look for a couple of small pieces of thin gauge sheet steel/aluminum. I would use tinsnips to trim two pieces to make a "sandwich" of the foam board, predrill the holes for the bolt, and then glue and screw the sandwich together. Might not be the most aesthetic repair, but it will get more life out of your original panel.
A couple of ideas… I’d find a nice, flat fender washer that fits that screw, place it on a block of wood and round it a bit with a ball peen hammer. That way, when I put it under the screw it would grab the door card material. Alternatively, I would hot glue a thin washer to the back of the door card, which would then enable the screw to hold it again. It looks like there’s a cover that goes over it anyway.
Thank you kindly. I am going to give this a try. If I may, what did you do with the dense foam around the eyelet?
I would caution against making a "robust" repair. IIRC this joint is deliberately" weak" to permit the door-mounted airbag a path to deploy. Please look carefully at the construction of this joint, and try to repair it accordingly.
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