Interior issues

[island_dude]

I have a 92 325i (E36 with an M50). While I love the car, it has some annoying cosmetic issues with the door panels. Basically, all but one of the panels separated from the doors and have the vinyl peeling off. It looks like someone had done a pretty poor job of trying reapply the stuff with some sort of glue that hasn't worked well. It also looks like they used staples too.

Anyway, I have gotten quotes from a shop for about $1K per door to fix them. This is way beyond what it is worth to me. I am not house poor and I can't afford to put lots of cash into this car. I am also considering moving on in a year. Does anyone know where I can find replacement panels for a reasonable price?

I am not super handy, but I am also willing to consider some sort of home grown solution.

[Jeron]

Thats a common problem but I haven't read up on it because it hasn't happened to me, yet.

I've never seen a repair discussed in this forum but it shouldn't be hard to find discussions on the web.

[Reardon_san]

I am quite certain that a home grown solution as you call it, would be sufficient. I'll tell you what I did for mine. I have a '95 325i CV and the driver side panel separrated as well. You can purchase these small plastic clips from the dealership parts dept. Each door panel takes about half a dozen. If you research the parts price list on your local dealers web site it might even be cheaper. Mine were about $.30 ea. but when i went in person they were $1.10 apiece, so I quoted the price from the web site and he gave it to me.
Anyways, those just fasten the panel itself to the door. The plastic inards were loose so I just super glued them dowm which is working well for now, we'll see, its only been about a week and a half.
As far as the vinyl, super glue with or with out the staples should do the trick.
I learned early on from a buddy of mine w/ my first Beamer that you can fix alot of things with a little super glue. You just kinda gotta be creative with the home grown repairs.
Good luck.

[island_dude]

Thanks for suggestions. I'll look into getting the fasteners. Its possible that there is some damage to the doors also that prevented the earlier fixes from working. I gave a friend's hyper kid ride on day and he managed to break off the remaining plastic fasteners from the inner part of the rear door. I think that one might be a total loss.

[Wayne 962]

We sell a ton of the door panel clips - just do a search on the search engine. $1K per door panel is ridiculous - I would check eBay, or simply use some 3M superweatherstrip and new door clips to solve the problem...

Can you post a pic?

-Wayne