Doors & Components

That is hinge wear, and it is mechanical rather than mysterious. The pin and bush inside the hinge carry the entire weight of the door every time it opens, and once the bush has worn oval the door drops a few millimetres, which you notice as a door that has to be lifted to line up with the striker. Look at the gap around the aperture: uneven top to bottom points at hinges, while an evenly wide gap points at a distorted shell. Upper and lower hinges are listed here separately for each door and side.

The check strap has failed. It is a notched arm between the door and the pillar that gives you the detents you feel at half open and fully open, and when the plastic rollers or the spring inside it wear, the door drifts closed under its own weight. Some owners describe it instead as a loud crack as the door swings past the mid point. It is one of the cheapest parts here, listed separately for front and rear doors, and replacing it is a straightforward job once the trim card is off.

Test it from inside. If the interior release opens the door normally and the exterior handle does not, the fault is in the handle or its cable and the latch is fine. If neither release works, the latch is jammed and sits in a different category. Exterior handles fail in a predictable way: the return spring breaks, or the internal lever cracks where it pulls the cable. The handle for your position is listed here on its own, so you rarely need to replace the latch alongside it.

Because most keyless systems put a sensor and an antenna in each handle rather than one in the car. A capacitive strip detects your hand and a low frequency coil talks to the key, and when either fails on one door, that door alone stops responding while the rest of the car behaves normally. Water ingress into the handle housing is the usual cause. Replacing the handle for that position is the fix, and it is worth confirming that your car uses handle mounted antennas before ordering, since some designs place them in the mirror instead.

Almost never. A door shell is supplied primed and bare, because paint plants match colour codes precisely and because shipping a glazed, trimmed door is impractical. Expect to transfer the glass, regulator, latch, loom, speaker, trim card and seals from your old door, or to buy those separately if they were destroyed. Read the listing carefully to see exactly what is included. That transfer work is a large part of why body shops charge what they do for a door swap, and it is worth pricing before ordering.

Look at where the damage is. Dents in the outer skin, even quite deep ones, are routine panel beating and paint work. Damage that has creased the inner frame, bent the hinge mounting faces or deformed the intrusion beam is a replacement, because the door's crash performance depends on those parts being straight and no filler can restore them. Doors that no longer close without lifting, or that show a fold running from the aperture inward, have moved past repair. Get the shell assessed before ordering either way.

The spread here is one of the widest on the site. Check straps, hinge pins and clips sit right at the bottom. Handles, particularly plain mechanical ones, remain inexpensive, while keyless versions with sensors cost more. Complete door shells sit at the top of the category because they are large, heavy and shipped as bulky freight. The live minimum and maximum are shown in the band at the top of this page. Fixing a hinge or a strap rather than replacing the door is very often the whole repair.

A check strap is well within reach: remove the trim card and vapour barrier, undo the bolt at the pillar and the two inside the door, and feed the new one through. Budget an hour or two. Hinges are harder, because the door must be supported precisely while the bolts come out and realigned afterwards to keep the gaps even, which usually takes two people and patience. Mark the hinge positions before loosening anything, and expect to adjust the striker afterwards to get a clean, quiet close.

Because they are different structures carrying different loads. Front doors are longer and heavier, hang off a fixed A pillar, and usually carry the mirror mount and more wiring. Rear doors are shorter, hinge from the B pillar, and often have a fixed quarter glass in the frame. Hinges, check straps and handles all differ between the two positions, and left and right differ again. That gives four combinations per part type on most cars, which is why the OE number matters more here than the description does.

Three places, in order. First, the drain slots along the bottom edge of the door, which block with grit and then hold water inside the cavity until it finds the trim. Second, the vapour barrier behind the trim card, which must be sealed all the way round. A lifted corner sends water straight onto the carpet. Third, the aperture seal itself, which hardens with age and stops sealing at the lower corners. Clear the drains before you buy anything, since that cures most cases.

The shell may well fit while the hardware does not. A door from a car without keyless entry lacks the handle wiring, one from a car without a powered mirror has a different mount, and speakers, side airbags and window switches all change the loom and the mounting points inside the cavity. Since the shell is the expensive part and the differences hide inside it, match the OE number rather than the outline. Where the number returns nothing, the quote form checks it against the factory catalogue directly.

Yes. Complete door shells are nearly always quoted, since they ship as oversize freight and the delivered figure depends on where the vehicle is. Ask through the form with the number for the correct side and, on models where the shell came primed, confirm the finish you are being offered. Smaller items behave differently: hinges, check straps, strikers and outer handles are frequently priced and can be bought without waiting. If the door still shuts but drops on its hinges, price the hinge pins first. Replacing a shell for what a pin kit would have cured is an expensive detour.