pr0digy30

Been a thorn in my side for a couple years now... have to really give the driver's door a good slam to get it to fully close properly.


The other doors all close with a slight amount of force... but the driver door needs much more force or it will go into a position where it is slightly latched, but the door protrudes abut 5/8 of an inch.

Thought it was the door lock mechanism and/or bowden cable which I replaced. No luck there.

My last hope is the door striker position, but I am not sure which way I should be going with it. Bentley's didn't seem to shed much light.

Any pros out there care to share their knowledge?

gwsteele

Is this car used? The doors usually come from the factory perfect. It's possible that if body work was done on the door, that it didn't get replaced perfectly.

This is all a combination of hinge adjustment and striker position. As long as your frame, or hinges aren't bent, you can probably find the right combination adjustments to fix it. My suggestion is to proceed like this:

- MARK YOUR STARTING POINT. Then try adjusting the striker to get the door to close smoothly. Be careful NOT to unscrew the striker bolts all the way. You could lose the bolts behind the striker - just loosen them enough to nudge the striker. Close the door very gently when you test the alignment at first, to make sure that the striker is aligned close to the lock. Sounds like you need to try moving the striker towards the outside of the car.

Once the door closes smoothly - look closely down the body line to make sure the door is perfectly aligned and also down the rubber window seam to make sure it seals correctly. A good way to test that is to close the door on a piece of paper in that seam and make sure it doesn't pull out easily. You may have to trade off a little smoothness for correct door alignment. If it's aligned correctly - you're done! If it isn't you have to figure out where it's off. It could be the hinges in the front, it could be the striker position, it could also be the rear door's alignment relative to the front door position (that last one took me about 2 hours to figure out). In that case - you have to start messing with the rear door. Ugh!

For the hinges - you can adjust the position of the door on the hinges - but positioning the hinges on the frame you'd have to remove the whole dash (I think) - since those are bolted on from the inside. You probably don't want to do that. Be conservative, little adjustments make a big difference. Also, be sure that it's your hinges before you start screwing around with them.

Warning - this whole thing is kind of a PIA. It's very finicky, sometimes frustrating, and it takes a long time to get right -at least it did for me - and I had buddy who owns a body shop helping me. Adjusting the hinges effects the door position and thus the correct striker position. For the hinges, most Torx sockets are too long on the socket wrench to get between the door and the body frame - so hopefully you have short ones or can come up with something creative.

I hope for your sake that it's just a simple striker adjustment!

CO2.8

Driver's door, other three doors close very easily. Frequently takes 2-3 tries on the driver's door. I didn't feel like messing with it since it was still under warranty. I'll report back if they do anything out of the ordinary.

pr0digy30

There isn't much adjustment that you can do... as you turn the bolts back in, it wants to sit in a certain position.

Had to lean on it with all my weight while tightening the bolts up.

Door closes much better now... not as easy as the rest, but definitely better than before.

pr0digy30

Please do. I managed to get mine somewhat better, but not as well as I would like.