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-   -   Sticky interior door handles in older BMWs (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-stuff/234478-sticky-interior-door-handles-older-bmws.html)

Are there any BMW owners on the forum who faced the problem of their interior door handles getting sticky over a period of time? I need to take care of this problem in 520d F10 and these seem to be my options:

1. Official BMW replacement. It will cost around Rs 40K for all four doors. Apart from the price, I am concerned that I will be replacing with the same garbage that will start getting sticky in a couple of years again.

2. A bit of googling shows a shop called Car Craft India in Mumbai that is supplying after-market parts for around Rs 15K (I think). No idea about quality and fitment. I managed to convince the BMW dealer to do the fitment with the parts I provide them. They want to charge labour of 8-10K.



I have the cinnamon brown interiors with matching brown colour interior door handles. I have seen some youtube videos where people used black colour door handles during replacement and to be honest it looks fabulous and also avoids dirt showing on the door handles.



I hate the quality of OEM material used, so I prefer to buy a very good quality non-OEM parts and preferably black instead of matching brown. Any suggestions from BMW owners who went through this issue?

Hey androdev, It may be a coincidence but I have a package that addresses the same problem as yours waiting to be delivered within the next 7-9 days. Could you post pictures of what your door handles/ door card looks like to exactly understand what needs to be fixed? Since my car just had the sticky door handle situation, I ordered a set of 4 snap on door handle plastic covers off ebay USA that should fix the issue. I will post the link of the item once I receive the product and can assess its quality.

You can see the door handle (with window switches) that needs replacement:


As a preventive measure, want to replace the door handles on other three doors also.

This is interesting.

The material in my GT is also a touch sticky. Will follow this thread to see what kind of solutions are working well.

Seeing the condition of your door handles, I would recommend going in for an OEM replacement only. Plastic/leather quality vary significantly in the aftermarket and I personally would not like to risk having quality issues on something I touch every time I step into the car.

Well, this is what I've ordered.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/353290062736

I'll upload pictures and let you know my experience once the product arrives.

I reckon your car is always serviced at the dealership, ask them to file a goodwill replacement claim. They won’t approve your claim but will certainly pass you a discount.

If other trims are fine, there is no need to change but take a call after having the final numbers from BMW.

There is a shop in Pune by the name of Regal Motors who has these handles for BMWs in stock. I had asked about the same for my X3 which were around 10000 for the inner part only. For the complete set (outer leather and inner part) it was around 14000. I remember seeing the handle sets for E90, F10, F25, F30, etc.
I am not associated with the shop and had found it because it is near my house.

I did make an attempt which expectedly did not go well. I can make a stronger case but the bigger issue is that the new handles are also made of same materials. I disliked the sticky nature of this plastic just after two years or so. If parked in hot sun, it gets really bad. Nothing else in the cabin is affected by age. One of those rubber/plastic stuff these manufacturers get terribly wrong. In S-class also I had to replace the original foot mats because they used some sort of sound-deadening rubberised base which started stinking.

I came across someone on the internet who replaced brown plastic trims with black. I thought they look much better (the doors already are dual-done) - in fact black handles are used in their more expensive interiors.

Left is the current one. Right is what I am tempted to go for. Bottom is to show that this is not a whacky mod.

There are a couple of vendors supplying handles which are aftermarket, without the soft touch rubber which melts. Many of my friends have used them, and they are absolutely fine and work. So I would suggest you go ahead with it without a second thought (be it in brown or black lol).

I think GTO had reported this issue in his 530d too. Quoting the same here:


Link to GTO's post

Thanks for all the helpful messages. Got a good referral in Bangalore to get this done outside of dealership. Will post an update after the job is completed.

May not be as easy on the 5 series but for the F30 3 series I read a post by Karan561 where he added a leather wrap on the rubber sticky piece. Link below:

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-...ml#post4659805

In Bangalore someone like Imperial leather can easily do this.

Simple solution is, to wrap the handles professionally with high quality rubber or plastic vinyl covera. This will make the handles very neat looking and sticky nature can also be completely eliminated. Spending 40k or even 15k for aftermarket is not worth in my opinion.

This is a regular issue with BMW. I have faced the same in my car which is an X3 (F25). The same has been seen on my friend's 3GT. His first instance happened under 2 years and was replaced under warranty. However, this has started wearing down again.
What I did was go to my nearest Car accessory shop and order leather wraps. The door handles were dismantled and wrapped (the same way steerings are wrapped using glue and stitches). And I must say I am very impressed with the quality. There are quite a few videos online as well where users have reported this issue and have gone for a leather wrap. I highly recommend this than going for OE replacement spares which are extremely expensive and will disintegrate again over a few months. The handles costed me around 8k which I believe is still worth it...

Our 2013 3-series (Sport Line) has door handles that have (had, rather) a black rubber layer on them. When parked the sun they would disintegrate and leave a sticky residue on the user's hands. Over time, the back of the handles got stripped down to bare plastic. They looks ugly but are more comfortable to use now. I've also seen this in a friend's 3-series GT. We're not looking for replacement handles unless there's a guarantee that the replacements won't be sticky too.