"BMW X5 - Outside Door Handles Not Working"

By Ron Stultz

11 February 2014

Summary: most likely cause of exterior door handle failing to open door is failure of door handle carrier as shown above. This is a relatively easy do-it-yourself (DIY) but you need to be cautious of where you procure replacement carriers if not from BMW.

Background:

BMW X5: model year 2000, 4.4i, 187,000 miles.

X5 always kept in garage until winter of 2013-14.

Very cold spell < 20 for week or more.

Went to open driver's side door and door would not open?

Went to passenger side door and door would not open?

To gain access to car, used key Fob and held down unlock button to get windows to move down.

From the Internet, have read dealer will charge $300+ to replace carrier on one side!!

Oh, FYI, the cast aluminum of both carriers fractured up near the door edge and large spring of the carrier attaches.

Replacing door handle carriers:

On the Internet, you can find multiple good websites that describe the procedure to replace a door handle carrier and I will not repeat here.

From BMW, a door carrier is about $90.

There are many 3rd party sources of door carriers. I got both the left and the right for $70.

If you do order from anyplace other than BMW, you need to check the carriers before you begin replacement.

The main thing to check is that the ball socket on the end of the short cable either rotates freely on the end of the cable (my original BMW version did) or if crimped to the cable is oriented 180 degrees from what is shown below.

The ball socket has to fit over a ball tab that sticks up out of the actual door edge locking mechanism and if oriented the wrong way on the cable, the ball socket will not stay on the ball tab.

In addition to checking the ball socket, you need to look at the Allen bolt that is going to hold the carrier to part of the door handle that does not move.

The carriers I got from a 3rd party did not have the Allen bolts oriented correct and thus I had to remove the plastic insert in the carrier Allen bolt hole to get the Allen bolt to properly mate with the exterior door handle.

The incorrect Allen bolt orientation you can easily deal with. An incorrectly crimped ball socket, you can not.

Tips, hints:

Replacing the door handle carriers is not a difficult DIY project but I will add this to what you can find on other Internet websites:

1. The window must be in the full up position.

2. Unhook battery. You must take out the airbag and no messing around with a electrically connected airbag.

3. Once you have all screws out of the inside door panel, the panel should lift up and off the inside window edge but if it does not want to move, try gently pulling the panel from the bottom center. There is a pressed in clip in the center of the panel.

4. I found it easiest to just undo the cables that hook to the door window regulator buttons rather than pry up the window buttons panel snapped into the door panel.

6 The cable that connects to the airbag is odd how it fits and snaps into and out of the airbag. Go slow in removing and reinserting.

7. Careful pull back the foam sound insulation at the corner next to the door handle. The foam can be pressed back into the weather stripping tar run around the edge.

8. You remove the Allen bolt first.

9. Push the handle from the inside and remove the nut holding the handle to the carrier.

10. Pushing the handle from the inside so the handle is actually pushed away from the car, rotate the handle slow clockwise until it is about 30 degrees from where it was and slowly wiggle it out of the carrier. DO NOT YANK OR OTHERWISE ROTATE TOO FAR!!!

11. The old carrier can be removed by playing with it such that it drops down behind the door edge lock mechanism.

12. The new carrier can be moved up into position without having to bend the cable all out of shape. Play with it until you get it. Perhaps straight up from below.

13. With new carrier in place, make sure the carrier metal fits into the small cutout on the outside door and also that the screw hole on the other side lines up.

14. Insert and tighten the sheet metal screw first.

15. Now push the carrier outward from the inside, such that you can put the handle tab into the hole in the carrier and push it in as far as you can and then rotate it counterclockwise until it slips down over the bolt sticking out of the carrier. Again, slow and easy hear as do not want to destroy plastic tabs on actual handle.

Good luck.