Bmw Door Handles Suck!

[billB]

Originally posted by Eric S.@Jan 20 2005, 11:32 PM
Guys -

This whole duscission reminds me of what a happened to a friend in 1990 with his 2-door 1988 Grand Prix (the 1st year of production of that completely new model, you may recall): One day when returning from grocery shopping, his wife opened the door, and it promptly fell down to the driveway!* Basically, the upper hinge broke, and so the rear bottom edge of the door hit the pavement.*

The car was officially out of warranty at "2" years old and 24,000 garage-kept miles, but my pal thought GM should cover it.* GM first tried to get defensive and accuse my pal of abusing the car (his wife weighed 110 pounds, tops).* Long painful story short, GM finally (and retroactively) capitulated and covered the repair, minus a $100 deductible or something like that.

The point of my friend's argument with GM (and, I think the same point Sporky and others are trying to make here) is that "some" parts should NEVER BREAK.* Ever.* A door hinge may be out of warranty at 25k miles, but it's reasonable to expect it to last hundreds of thousands of miles, if not indefinitely, except for maybe bushings/inserts.

To me, a door handle, external or internal, fits this same argument.* Some parts may come and go, but a door handle should NEVER break under normal use.* I love Sporky's example of how it looks to a potential BMW buyer seeing someone not able to get into their BMW normally.

So, struts, alternators, tie rod ends, headlights OK, but I don't think anyone should ever have to replace a door handle.* There's just no excuse on a 50K car.* An accomplished engineer bud of mine specializing in state-of-the-art stress analysis and design (and has worked on Ford truck turn signal mechanisms, for instance) says you'd be amazed how little analytical engineering typically goes into such pieces - they try to stick with proven older designs, and if something breaks in the field, they usually modify by making the breaking piece thicker or whatever and trying that out.* No FEA, no FEM, nothing.* So my pal's company has virtually unlimited opportunity to improve such things as a consultant (DAA Solutions, in Connecticut).

OK, sorry for the rant.* I was going to let it go, but Sporky made such a good point that I had to jump back in!

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Unless we talking Starsky and Hutch – they didn't use their door handles much - I don't see why this should be the case. Note the following:
1. How soon/early do the door handles break. Do they really break at 20k, 40k, 50K, or after a year of regular use or way much longer than that?
2. Again without defending anyone, a door handle is a door handle: spring loaded, internal mechanism, stress, tension, plastic, hollow material, weight of the door etc etc all forces acting upon the poor little thing. How can I say should NEVER break under normal use.
3. As to what constitutes a normal use? Is it an opening/closing of the door gently? Absolutely NOT. In winter when that door freezes, no matter how gentle we think we are, it takes a lot of yanking at the door handle to open it, a bad/stuck door lock mechanism puts the same stress on the poor little thing.
4. A simple understanding of the laws physics does negate the whole idea of everlasting MOVING mechanical parts.

P.S. Once I had a 1974 ford Thunderbird with a 460 engine, there was no way to open that door in a gentle manner. I had to use my left shoulder to push it out of the way so I can get out.
regards
billb