W204 Door Card

[Dommi27]

Hi,

I wondered if someone could help me please on an issue that is consuming way too much of my time!

I’ve owned my W204 AMG Sport Plus for just over a year, love driving it and it’s been great to own. When I originally bought the car I noticed some damage to the top part of the driver’s door card. My hunch was that the previous owner damaged it somehow and had it corrected (badly). I didn’t think much of it at the time as I just thought I’d get a replacement door card. I did manage to find an almost identical secondhand one on eBay shortly after in the same trim, however when I received it, I noticed the grip on the interior door arm in my car has the indented/scalloped grip, whereas the replacement door card I bought doesn’t have this.

I’ve spoken to Mercedes Benz about this and they have told me the arm rest can’t be taken out so the only alternative is to order a brand new door card, which is super expensive.

I’ve also been checking eBay/breakers yards for the same door card as what I currently have but no success so far.

I know this is a really petty thing as I can get the replacement door card I bought fitted on my car fairly easily, but knowing that the door grips are different will send my OCD into the stratosphere.

Any help/ideas/recommendations would be gratefully appreciated! Pictures attached are of my current door card with the damage and the door grip.

Thanks

 

[rayaans]

TBH id live with the door grips. They cant be seen and therefore should not be an issue.

Yes you might know that its different but you'll also get used to it - otherwise you could be spending another 2 years looking for a door card in the correct trim

 

[pillow]

The arm rest will be replaceable.

It may either be attached with a screw of some sort to the card, or a more permanent fixing like a plastic weld.

Obviously if it is screwed it's an easy swap, if it has plastic welds you would need to grind/cut off the weld and replace. You could then potentially add screws in place of the plastic weld or redo them.

 

[Dommi27]

TBH id live with the door grips. They cant be seen and therefore should not be an issue.

Yes you might know that its different but you'll also get used to it - otherwise you could be spending another 2 years looking for a door card in the correct trim

I know, the amount of time I’ve spent mulling this over recently has been a bit silly! But I think I might just need to swap the door card around and ignore the different grips.

 

[Dommi27]

The arm rest will be replaceable.

It may either be attached with a screw of some sort to the card, or a more permanent fixing like a plastic weld.

Obviously if it is screwed it's an easy swap, if it has plastic welds you would need to grind/cut off the weld and replace. You could then potentially add screws in place of the plastic weld or redo them.

I did ask MB whether this was possible and they said it can’t be done? Whether they were just hoping I’d buy another door card from them I’m not sure, but I did think the whole rest could be swapped?

 

[pillow]

I did ask MB whether this was possible and they said it can’t be done? Whether they were just hoping I’d buy another door card from them I’m not sure, but I did think the whole rest could be swapped?

They will say that because Mercedes would never breakdown a composite part like this because it comes from the factory "pre-assembled"

I've had a quick look on ebay and it seems the constituent parts of the door card are all plastic welded together, so you break the door card down into individual pieces but it is a little more effort than just removing screws.

If you're not confident with this sort of thing it may be worth speaking to an automotive trimmer.

Someone wanting to retrim the armrests in new leather would have to remove the armrest before they can wrap it in fresh leather, so they will already have experience of disassembling the door card down.

 

[Dommi27]

They will say that because Mercedes would never breakdown a composite part like this because it comes from the factory "pre-assembled"

I've had a quick look on ebay and it seems the constituent parts of the door card are all plastic welded together, so you break the door card down into individual pieces but it is a little more effort than just removing screws.

If you're not confident with this sort of thing it may be worth speaking to an automotive trimmer.

Someone wanting to retrim the armrests in new leather would have to remove the armrest before they can wrap it in fresh leather, so they will already have experience of disassembling the door card down.

It is a possibility, although it’s not something I’ll be doing myself. There’s a reputable MB specialist near me so I’ll see what they say. Definitely not prepared to fork out £700+ on a new door card from MB!

 

[Corty]

Have you sorted this one out? I have just done this particular repair on mine, I bought another s/h trim and then swapped the top parts. There are videos on you tube on replacing the inner door handle, which is basically covering the same removal and refit of the door car. If you need any help just let me know.

 

[Dommi27]

Have you sorted this one out? I have just done this particular repair on mine, I bought another s/h trim and then swapped the top parts. There are videos on you tube on replacing the inner door handle, which is basically covering the same removal and refit of the door car. If you need any help just let me know.

I haven’t, but if you have seen any videos please do let me know!

All that I need to do with my door card is just replace the top part, everywhere I seem to look just points towards a new door card

 

[colinallcars]

I haven’t, but if you have seen any videos please do let me know!

All that I need to do with my door card is just replace the top part, everywhere I seem to look just points towards a new door card

still not done it? You really need to push your OCD to the side and get it fitted! Whilst breaking down the assembly is possibly, I’ve done it often in the past, it seldom goes back together quite right. No one will notice the difference, not even you after a while.

 

[Corty]

I haven’t, but if you have seen any videos please do let me know!

All that I need to do with my door card is just replace the top part, everywhere I seem to look just points towards a new door card

I new or correct second hand door card are without doubt the best answers, but new is ridiculously expensive and getting the correct s/h one can be very hard to find, I have red stitching on mine and couldn't find any good ones to match, so I opted to transplant a replacement upper part onto my lower section.
First thing to do is to work out what part is the top, at the front the top section goes down almost to the speaker. With the exception of the small finishers trims which are held in by 10mm nuts, nearly every else is just the plastic being melted and spread out, a bit like a rivet. Most are round so I just got a drill bit roughly the size of the circumference of the plastic head and then drilled of the top of the melted plastic, you must be precise here as you don't want to drill into the plastic panel it attaches to, also you need to keep the body of the plastic as you have to re-attach the pieces using small self tappers screwed into these. There are also some rectangular tabs as well, these you need to snip of and forget about though I guess you could run a line of something like tiger well along it to give it a bit of attachment to the underneath section. It's difficult on here to say what tabs need drilling so you need to look at the videos on YouTube, if you type in w204 inner door handle repair you will find them but here is one example for you.

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Let me know if i can help anymore.

 

[Dommi27]

I new or correct second hand door card are without doubt the best answers, but new is ridiculously expensive and getting the correct s/h one can be very hard to find, I have red stitching on mine and couldn't find any good ones to match, so I opted to transplant a replacement upper part onto my lower section.
First thing to do is to work out what part is the top, at the front the top section goes down almost to the speaker. With the exception of the small finishers trims which are held in by 10mm nuts, nearly every else is just the plastic being melted and spread out, a bit like a rivet. Most are round so I just got a drill bit roughly the size of the circumference of the plastic head and then drilled of the top of the melted plastic, you must be precise here as you don't want to drill into the plastic panel it attaches to, also you need to keep the body of the plastic as you have to re-attach the pieces using small self tappers screwed into these. There are also some rectangular tabs as well, these you need to snip of and forget about though I guess you could run a line of something like tiger well along it to give it a bit of attachment to the underneath section. It's difficult on here to say what tabs need drilling so you need to look at the videos on YouTube, if you type in w204 inner door handle repair you will find them but here is one example for you.

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Let me know if i can help anymore.

Thanks very much for this

It’s not the chrome handle I wanted to replace, it’s the actual door arm/rest that runs across the whole width of the door.

Probably won’t risk doing this myself so I might just see if I get lucky finding a replacement door card instead.