Door Handles keep breaking

No breaks fur me....2 tacos and a t4r.....as i mentioned earlier though a lil lube has greatly improved their performance however!!

 

Keep poking the Tacoma gods and you will soon be replacing door handles.

 

Just replaced my front passenger side today with one off rock auto. Seems okay but well see how long it lasts... wasn’t too hard to do (if you have small hands) so it was a kinda a pain

 

Never had a problem but pretty much I am the only one using the truck.

Might be good to buy a new one just in case

I had some on my Celicas that the attachment points would rust off

 

Because California.

I think it's more prone to breaking in cold weather.

 

Ok Now I know why I never had problems not much of a winter here either

None of those minus 40 F temperatures for weeks on end

 

Agreed... no handles ever broken in 13 years until I went to Arizona for school.. then it got cold and snap

 

Lol good point.
The clearcoat is starting to flake off the hood though. It's REALLY bad on the roof. Body shop quoted me $500 just for the roof.

 

Same. My taco lived in Arizona and California for the most part and my roof has really awful oxidation. Since my truck is black already, I was thinking about wrapping the roof or maybe line-xing it.

 

You're not the only one! Never even had the thought of my door handles breaking...Knock on wood.

 

Both my OEM ones broke in the same week....

 

Will absolutely, positively break within a year. I've been through the Rock Auto ones as well.

 

It was the dorman one... not the cheap $7 ones but we'll see

 

last year just about almost winter took mine in for a wash over night unexpected frost came and froze the handle shut 1st attempted to open the door snapped the handle right off had to use a butter knife to open the hinge after that , went to a scape yard where they had a rolled 01-to 04 i had to take them off myself and had to pay 10 dollars for the handle so i figured id take both for 20 just in case haven't had a problem since fingers crossed for this year

 

We dont have tacoma’s in scrape yards around here

 

we have all kinds over here mostly due to a frame problem 1st gens , waiting for a 2nd gen to get a engine for my 07

 

Any member out there hand luck with Non OEM or Dorman replacements?

Both my Dorman replacements are around a year old and neither of them work correctly. Drivers door only opens when you completely lift the handle. Passenger door does that false open requiring another unlock from the door lock to open.

EDIT: I do realize it may not be the handle but the small clips in the door actuator arms behind the door skin. Anybody source those plastic clips?

 

@eon_blue has had good luck with his Dorman replacement. He lubed it up real good with silicone grease or PTFE lube or something. He even mentioned the typical part of handle that breaks looks to be more substantial on the Dorman. No experience personally

 

I had multiple OEM handles break on me and the all failed on the circled part of this photo....the Dorman handles I installed have a bigger lip there to engage the handle. The smaller OEM one would start to slip there and cause the door to not open.

The handles on our trucks are shitty in more ways than one so it really depends on what kind of issues you're having with them, but for me the Dorman handles are much better. Mine have lasted over a year so far with no issues, I daily my truck and use them often





EDIT- just realized I circled the wrong part, its the smaller lip to the left of the circle that presses down on the metal there.

 

I've finally gotten to where I'm comfortable with letting other people open the doors to my truck and I don't feel inclined to say a prayer begging for them not to break when I go to use them...for awhile there last year I was having door handle PTSD, I couldn't get the damn things to last more than a few weeks.