B4 Passat Door Fix, Variation #1

I no longer own my Passat, unfortunately, but I have seen lots of people still referencing this page. I feel obligated to mention, therefore, that this fix unfortunately was temporary at best, in the end. It worked for a while, but the lever mechanism in that handle is just too fragile. It got worse and worse. Finally I just had to replace the door handle, which was not cheap, from the dealer. Your mileage from a junkyard may vary. So, feel free to try this.. it may buy you a few months, but you'll probably have to replace it eventually.

The B4 Passat door handles seem to be most common problems B4 owners report. They are very odd little wonders of engineering. Odd in a bad way.

First, a discussion of how the door handle is supposed to work:

Above is the driver's side front door handle after being removed from the car (discussion of how to do this to follow). It's a bit hard to describe in words how this works, but with the aid of the picture, here goes:

1. As you pull out on the handle, it pulls on the bar running horizontally in that picture and pivots it on the vertical pin in the middle of the picture.
2. The other end of course pushes in towards the car, and moves the other piece of the handle, which pivots around a horizontal pin (which can become dislodged, which requires the fix detailed here).
3. This end, as it moves, pushes the arm at the very top down into the door latch, causing it to open.

Phew. It will make a little more sense if you just take it apart and look at it. Complicated, eh? Complicated enough that it doesn't take much to break.

Above is a close-up of the section circled in red in the first picture. It's the piece that in the case of my door handle was responsible for the door not opening. If you look closely, you can see that the top end of that little knob is worn down -- it should look just like the other end. If you look even more closely, you can see that there's a divot worn away in the metal, as well. The result is that when you put all the pieces into action, that last mechanism doesn't get enough leverage to engage the latch. Compare this to a doorhandle that isn't as worn (i.e., your rear passenger door), and you'll see the difference.

So what do you do to fix it? Well, ideally you would want to fix the part that is worn, but realistically the only way to do that would be to replace the whole handle. Since we're cheapskates, we don't want to do that! So, I attacked the other end (literally!) of the problem. The lever wasn't getting enough leverage to reach the latch. Since I couldn't increase the leverage, I just increased the reach of the lever with some good ol' fashioned hot glue. Procedure below:

1. First, open the door. Make sure the window is rolled up. Make sure the window is rolled up again. I spent an hour taking my entire door apart because the handle wouldn't come off like normal one day, only to realize I left the window down. I am stupid. But I digress:
2. There is a screw on the end of the door. Unscrew it.
3. Push on the door handle towards the front of the car. It should slide about half an inch to the front.
4. You should be able to pull the handle out with ease. Pull the side towards the back of the car out first, and then pull out the front side (it sorta wedges in there). Voila.

1. Take a hot glue gun and let it get nice and hot.
2. While the gun is heating, take note of the place where we're applying the glue. It's the plastic (white, usually) sheath around the metal arm that engages the latch. We want to just make it longer.
3. With your nice hot glue gun (and glue), apply the glue to the tip, first, and then do your best to make a coat around the plastic on the sides, too. Make sure you are liberal, but neat. I first tried this with just a dollup of glue on the end, and it would have worked fine, except when I was putting it back in, I knocked it right off the end. Putting glue around the sides keeps the glue nice and snug.
4. Let it dry.
5. Re-assemble the handle. You may have to angle the arm/handle slightly to get it back in, because the clearance of the hole in the door is just barely higher than that of the length of the arm.
6. Cross your fingers and try to open your door

The finished product:

You may or may want to use a little more glue than I did. I didn't want to make it so much that I'd have trouble getting it back in the car, but I probably could have been more generous than I was. The door opens fine, now, but it's still not as tight as the un-worn handles. It probably would be if I had put a little more on there. I may go back and do that, and coat the sides a little better to ensure it doesn't fall off.

Good luck!