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Drivers door handle (exterior)


Ron Walker

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I recently joined ROJ though I've owned my '89 Reatta for more than 15 years. However, last week the drivers side exterior door handle broke off. My local Buick dealer advised that he is unable to find a replacement (says repair is unlikely with "pot" metal). Is anyone aware of an aftermarket exterior door handle replacement? Or, are there any other models of either Buick or other models that may have interchangeable parts that would work?

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Contact Jim Finn reattas60@gmail.com. He should have the part you need. He is honest and has reasonable prices.

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Thanks for your prompt reply. I'll check with Mr. Finn and hope for success.

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I just completed an email to Mr. Finn, and will advise of my success.

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So the same thing happened on my 1990. I actually replaced it with a 1991 door handle, which you can get off rock auto for about $10. The only difference is that the 91 door handle does not have The bracket for the little switch that is on the 89 and 90 models.  Right now I just left the switch hanging out in the door, but eventually I am going to find a way to mount the switch to the 91 handle. You could probably do it fairly easily, I just didn't have the time to mess with it at the time.

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I appreciate your weighing in on this. However, two things:

1) I already heard from Jim Finn who had the part available and I confirmed his sale to me. If all goes well, I'll have the replacement installed within the next 10 days.

2) My Buick dealer advised that he had a door handle break on his Park Avenue. Said he replaced it with an aftermarket part and the aftermarket part broke within 6 months. Caveat is that aftermarket not as good as OEM.

Rest assured, though, if Mr. Finn did not have the part, and I was against a "rock" and a hard place, I'd surely go for the Rock Auto part. The alternative is getting in the passenger side, leaning over the console and reaching for the inside door handle to open the drivers door. My wife usually got stuck for the latter, and she ain't too happy about that.

Thanks again.  

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  • 1 month later...

Update. The door handle was installed by my brother. Took longer than expected (a little over 2 hours), but all is well. A case of beer was much cheaper (and more fun) than the $90 an hour at the dealer. Jim Finn provided some installation tips. I'll cut and paste below:

The door panel needs to be removed as well as the rubber cover at the top rear. Going down inside the door from this area allows the person to access one of the bolts that holds the handle to the door.*** 
I like drilling the hole in an area that is normally covered by the door panel to access the other bolt using a 1/4 inch drive socket. The nuts are #10.
After removing the nuts the handle will be able to be removed from the outside of the door but there is a yellow tipped rod, coming up from the latching mechanism that needs to come out of the handle.  Removing the three Phillips screws on the end of the door allows the person to push down the whole mechanism down enough to allow the yellow tipped rod to come out of the handle.
After either fixing or replacing the handle assembly reverse the process putting everything back together and as you mentioned this would be a good time to put some grease on the window tracks.
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My note following the asterisks in the prior post. 

We actually couldn't access one of the bolts, so we had to drill two holes which accomplished the task. However, the hole drilled that Jim Finn thought would not be necessary turned out to be visible after reattaching the door panel. The visible hole, although small, was covered with a piece of black duck tape, and, except for the installers, no one is the wiser. 

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Unfortunately, no photos, sorry. I'll try to keep this in mind for future mods. 

We did take a piece of masking tape and started on the outside of the door handle and kept the tape level and moved it around to the inside. Then with visualization, and measurement between the two nuts, the holes were drilled reasonably accurately. 

 

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