I LOVE this video and all comments. Our 2012 has just encountered this exact issue and I was seriously wondering how to deal with this. Much thanks for posting & all additional comments!
Perfect. Thanks for the idea about making the bracket and pinching it on without welding. I'm sure when we welded it the paint would have come off. My 2010 dodge grand caravan did this. My 5 year old daughter broke the handle off. I'd say that's a manufacturer defect.
Well I'm back here 2 years later. The door handle I put in 2 years ago broke again! This time the plastic sheared. The metal bracket is holding strong, though!
Wow, so many frustration avoided. I removed the inside panel within 10 minutes. All I got to do now is the fabrication of the longer piece. Many many thanks ! By the way, I will have my friend cut 2 pieces instead of just one.......for the future !
Thanks for the Vid, I had the same issue and this helped - prior to watching this I thought it would have been more difficult. Also, I found that the 'scallop' feature is actually needed to clear the latch so for anyone else that makes this fix, be sure to include that.
Thanks the post, I just ripped my handle off this morning!! looks like a good fix. I will give it a try. I also broke the plastic clip on the left side of the handle though. I have to to go a wrecker and see if I can find that piece.
I do something very similar I just take one bolt out at a time and put a inch long piece of steel like a big square washer on the top and bottom so I don’t have to remove the handle 👍
Thank you so much for making this video, also this seems like a pretty big flaw. Hoping I will be able to fix mine, don't got the tools or any way of producing that part.
once you pry off the door panel, how do you get it back in. In the rear corner is a black trim piece the somehow you must insert the back of the panel into a hole while trying to get the top of the panel into the groove at the top. Does the black piece just pop off?
thank you very much i appreciate your efforts i was thinking to do the same thing but I'm asking myself did this gonna work but when i see this video i said thank God it's work thank you again gays keep it up
Brian: I just did this repair today. I used a piece of metal about 9/16" wide by 2" long. I ground the dish shape in so there was about 7/16" remaining. I found the best way to get the holes accurate is to use the door handle as the pattern. I did it a little different than the video....after taking the panel off, I also took off the inside handle...there are 3 (or 4?) hex head screws (10mm I think) and 2 T20 screws holding it on. I disconnected the wires for window/seat heat. I also took off the locking rod from the handle, but in hindsight, it really wasn't necessary, but it did allow more room to work by having the handle moved well out of the way. To do that, I moved the locking bar so that it swung outside the mechanism where I could grasp hold of it, and then popped the locking plastic catch off the bar and popping the bar free of the handle mechanism. Here's the important part I learned after the fact....to access the 8mm hex heads that hold the outside handle on, take off the black plastic tape covering the hole under the inside handle. I tried for a long time to access them through the big plugged hole...but if you take the tape off, you get a direct shot at the screw heads. Be careful not to drop the screws into the door...I dropped the metal repair piece and was lucky enough to have a good magnet I "borrowed" from my wife's refrigerator magnet collection, taped it to a yardstick, and fished it out on the magnet. It worked, but I'd not recommend this just for sport....it could have not been so easy! After you carefully remove the front screws, take out the back ones too. You have to manually operate the handle to get the cam piece out of the front...and after the front piece is out, the rear piece rotates outward and the handle comes free. I popped off the pull cable stop piece and the cable end from the handle so I had the entire handle to work on in the shop. I fabricated the repair piece and test fit it in the shop. I'd recommend doing this so you get the idea how the handle moves and how you can insert the repair piece from the inside of the door, all by feel. TO reassemble, I put the handle back in the door, then CAREFULLY operated the latch from the outside and slid the repair piece into position. When you release the latch, it holds the piece in position so you can put the screws back in (through the untaped hole...). After tightening all screws, I attached the pull cable, snapped the cable stop piece back into position...and then I tried the handle. Voila...it worked! By hand, and with the power actuator. Everything else is in reverse....and, whether it needed to be or not, I used electrical tape to close up the hole in the door...and put a couple of pieces on the backside to stick to the tape to make it secure. All in all, if I'd known it was as straight forward, I would have taken a few more minutes and made a video, but hindsight is 20/20.... Good luck. (in the end, I had no pieces left over, everything worked, and the plastic inner door panel snapped back into all the holes perfectly). I'd say this saved a couple hundred dollars...and, shame on Chrysler for such a chintzy design in the first place. For less than a penny, it could have been done right in the first place. Let me know if you have any questions...
