Exterior door handles...are they problematic?

My friend has a 2003...

first the exterior driver door handle broke off. recently the passenger exterior handle broke also. These things seem to be made of cheap plastic that fails.

Is there any preventative maintenance, such as lubrication, we can do on our trucks to help prevent this from happening?

I don't remember this being an issue on the older toyotas.

thanks

 

I had to replace mine at ~268k (when I bought the truck) - unsure if it was the first replacement or not. I think I paid about 20 bucks for one from eBay.

 

Never had a problem here. Are they the original handles? Or were they replaced at one time with the cheap eBay Chinese replacements?? They are greased on the inside, if dirt and grime gets in there it will make it harder for the mechanism to work. Have him pull his door panel and see if there is a bunch of gunk built up

 

I'm wondering if it's an Arizona / sun thing. My NH truck was fine at ~200k.

 

I just replaced one because it broke (2001, 155k). Before it broke, it was hard to operate, and I kept pulling harder and harder until the handle snapped. Mine was covered with sand, dust, and grit, from years of driving on dirt roads.

Open the door panel and lubricate the handle. Also lubricate the actual lock mechanism - I sprayed mine out with brake cleaner, then used some silicone spray. It all works great now, almost no effort required.