What is “it”? That would be the door on my van, which we fixed by replacing this:
In case you’re wondering, that thing in the picture is a broken door handle. One day, I went to open Zoe’s door as I usually do, and the handle just snapped. Unfortunately, it’s made of plastic, and the piece that broke rendered the handle useless.
Thankfully, that particular handle was for the sliding door, which meant that we could easily reach in through the front door and open the sliding door from the inside. This was especially fortunate because the handle broke right before vacation, and we had to open the sliding door using alternate means the whole time we were away. It would have been far more aggravating to deal with a broken front door for two weeks.
There’s always a bright side, isn’t there?
Anyways, after the handle broke, I called around to see how much a new handle would cost. Toyota was willing to sell me a color-matched handle for a mere $160. Yikes. How exactly you can charge $160 for a plastic door handle and keep a straight face is sort of beyond me.
Toyota also graciously offered to install this $160 door handle for just $100 more. Whee! The dealership is just the best place to get parts and service, isn’t it??
Riiight. Instead of scheduling an appointment with the dealership, I hopped onto the internet and found that a primed black door handle could be purchased for $30. That’s more like it. Of course, if I owned a white van or a blue van or really, any van that wasn’t black, this wouldn’t have worked too well. But, joy of joys, mine is black, so the primed handle matches just fine. My other handles are actually painted, sure, but the paint is peeling off of them. So, I figured a primed handle wouldn’t be any more unsightly than the existing handles, which look like this.
When the part arrived, my husband and I consulted our handy-dandy Haynes manual (love this thing!) to figure out how to take the door apart.
It turns out that we just had to pop the plastic off the inside of the door, unscrew the old handle, screw in the new one, attach it to the power-lock system, and put the plastic back onto the door. Easy-peasy (especially since my husband did most of the work!). I think it took all of about 15 minutes.
It’s the best looking handle on my van now.
And what makes it even more beautiful to me is that it cost $30 instead of $260. That’s some gorgeous savings right there.
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I broke the mirror on my first car and took it to the junkyard and paid way too much to get it replaced. I wish I had known that all I had to do was to take off about 3 screws and then attach the new one.
What a great story; I love how you saved all that money just by taking a bit of time and care to fix things yourself. You deserve that saving, and then some ….
My door handel just broke. However when another handle broke last year, we tried to put it in ourselves but it was way more compliacted than we could handle(no pun intended) The handle this time costs 36.00, I don’t know yet how much to install. i hope not too much. Way to go with yours!!
Fabulous! I love DIY stories like this! So glad you saved yourselves $230!!!
Well done! I learned my lesson once when I backed into a pole and broke my taillight. I was so afraid to tell my husband that I hi-tailed it to a repair shop and paid something like $200 to have it fixed. When I caved and told my husband anyway, I thought he would be proud that I got it fixed already…until he told me he could have bought the part at Canadian Tire and replaced it himself…using our Haynes manual!
Love, love, love those Haynes manuals!! It’s fun to be able to fix it yourself and pocket a bundle for your next vacation
What is a Haynes manual, and where do I get one???
You go girl! And hubby too!
Now I’m going to go find a Haynes manual at my library… sounds like a must have!
Nice! It feels great to fix things yourself and save money. Win Win.
Way to go! It’s so true that we lose so much money by relying on others to do common repairs/tasks for us. I remember a really inspiring story my friend told me. She had just had her second baby, her husband had left her, she was unemployed, and the transmission (manual) in her car went out. She told me she went and borrowed the repair manual for her car, and for a WEEK she worked on that car every day for hours, taking things apart, putting it back together. Well eventually she got it replaced and it ran like a charm! I was so impressed with her tenacity, I think about that story any time I’m tempted to just have someone else do the work so I can have it done.
Fantastic. I love saving money
You can find many service manuals online in PDF form for free! For sure you can find the owners manuals for free.
Also, look for forums for your make and model of car. You will find other people who can answer questions about simple repairs and modifications. Lots of good information out there.
Fabulous! I love doing things in a more frugal way that works! It makes me want to remind people you can do things like this, you don’t always need to go somewhere.
I love that you were able to fix it yourself! I still have aspirations to do my own oil changes, but luckily the hubs does it for me. One question though, I noticed that there is no keyhole in the handle. Can you still lock the door?
This story is like deja vu for me.
It just so happens that although we live across the country from each other, my brother and I both own the same make/model of mini-van. (I’m not sure if it’s the same model as Kristen’s.) This summer, we went to visit my brother, and went camping with both families. (An excellent time was had by all!) On the long drive home, with the dog in the back of my brother’s car, the latch on the trunk broke. (It’s a long and funny story of us trying to protect the dog from falling camping gear while letting him in/out of the car through the side door. But that’s an entirely separate story.) Eventually we made it back to his house and unpacked the car, through the side doors only. Two days later, after I had flown home, my brother called to tell me that the latch on the side door broke too!
He called the dealer who wanted almost $1000 to fix both latches! Instead, my brother did some research, found the parts online, and fixed both for $80 and 1.5 hours of time. By himself.
Well, I was very impressed. And after I called to tell him so, well, the very next day the latch on *my* trunk broke! Luckily for me, he had already done all the research! So he sent me the info, I bought the part online, and hope to install it this weekend.
It’s like an epidemic of mini-van latches going bad. Are they susceptible to H1N1?!
Great story…my husband avoids the dealer like the plague…he swears you bring cars in to be fixed and you’re back in the shop a couple of weeks later with a new problem having to be fixed. The best is when a mechanic told us our transmission was going to die soon and we “needed to get it fixed right away”. Many years later and 150,000+ miles registered on my Volvo….need I say more. Hubby fixes everything he can!
I love auto junk yards for this very reason. If all you need is a single, easy part like this, they’re the perfect place. You can even call ahead to see if they have a similar car in the yard, and some even help pull parts. It can be even cheaper if you pull your own!
Great story! I love it and am so happy that my husband is handy and knows how to do repairs (or learns!). I bought a 2-year-old Camry three years ago, and it needed two new tires last week, and when I went to put the receipt in my car folder, I saw that so far I’ve spent less than $300 on repairs and maintenance in 3 years! That’s partly because it’s a Toyota, and partly because my husband does simple repairs, oil changes, etc. And like Yvette, we NEVER go to the dealer. We actually are amused by people who think that’s the best thing to do.
Good for you!
I’ve given you an award. Go to http://renaissancegardenblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/another-award.html to claim it.
Yay! I did the same thing with my driver side mirror. I live on a street where people cut into the parking lanes to get into the turning lane going to the train station. My mirror was hit before and it cost me $200. It was hit again and I ordered the mirror. The original is remote but I decided to go with the manual one. I just tucked the cables that control the mirror from inside into the door panel. The remote hook up would have been complicated. It cost me $31.95 to get the mirror and my labor. I saved $168.00.
I got my info from an internet website that gives advice on making car repairs for Ford vehicles. Gotta love the internet!
Thanks for this post! I recently broke the side mirror off of my car. I don’t know why, but it would never have occurred to me to try to fix it myself if I hadn’t read this post. I ordered a new one off of Amazon and my husband (who is not handy at all) installed it. Saved me about $250 and all the time of driving to the dealership, etc. Thanks!!
This sounds sooo familiar!! Our 2001 Seinna passenger outside door handle has been broken for a while now. It was still attached, but has slowly been broken off piece by piece, even though we have the kids all get in on the other side of the van. I felt so bad, a friend’s little girl, who wasn’t aware the handle was broken tried to get in one day and broke it clean off.
So my hubby wanted to finally get it fixed. He had me call the dealership and get a quote on how much it would cost to get it fixed. About two weeks ago I set up an appointment to go in today to have it fixed. I was told that they had the part in stock and that it would cost $234 and change to have it fixed. I was choking on this price but my husband told me to go ahead and make the appointment.
So I took it in to get it done today. The guy I spoke to on the phone was not there, they couldn’t find our appointment on the schedule. Then the guy, who looked barely out of his teens, looked and said, “This is Friday’s schedule! No wonder we can’t find her appointment!” Then I was directed in to a guy to schedule my service, (which I had already scheduled!!). He tells me “Oh that part is not in stock. Do you want to order it?” Knowing that my hubby wanted it done, I told him to go ahead. In the process the price magically morfed into $264 and change!! WHAT??? I asked the guy why it was more than when I first called and he just mumbled something about the cost of the part and the cost of the service.
Anyway, to shorten this long story, my hubby was NOT happy when I told him they jacked up the price and we had to order the part. He went online and found it for less as well. I think he is going to try installing it himself.
Gosh, Dee. I’d be ticked off too! I hate the repair part of dealerships.
It’s really not too bad to install yourself. Go online and order a Haynes manual for your van if you need some help. There are pictures of how to take the door apart in the Haynes manual.