body and interior Why do 02 doors hang so poorly ??

[Russkcpa]

I see pictures of so many cars where the door gaps are pathetic or the doors are bowed out at the bottom. I can understand the gap between the hood but not sure what the deal is with doors that hang poorly or are bowed out. Gravity ? Poor hinges ? 

[TobyB]

Rust and accidents, mostly-

 

the 2002's actually pretty good compared to, say, a 1971 Cadillac Eldorado or something of THAT caliber.

 

The biggest problem getting 2002 doors to align is that there's no easy in- out adjustment at the front edge of the door.

Up- down and front- to- back are pretty straightforward.  Plus, you really have to align the door to the rear quarter,

then align the fender to the door, and that's not always easy.

 

For a mass- produced lightweight throwaway car, BMW did pretty well with the 2002.  Just like VW did with the Beetle- for what it is, the

gaps on those got to be pretty good over the years.

 

t

 

[Conserv]

3 hours ago, Russkcpa said:

I see pictures of so many cars where the door gaps are pathetic or the doors are bowed out at the bottom. I can understand the gap between the hood but not sure what the deal is with doors that hang poorly or are bowed out. Gravity ? Poor hinges ? 

 

Yes, all of the above.  Very, very few cars are loved continuously for 40+ years.  Moreover, when a worn, say, 20-year-old car, worth maybe $1,000 repaired, suffers from rust or an accident -- as Toby mentions -- how much care goes into the repair?  Bad replacement door gaskets play an additional role -- although they appear to be getting better.

 

New car quality today is soooo much better than new car quality 40+ years ago.  But BMW did a pretty darned good job from the factory.  Here's my '76 recently, still with factory gaps.  Not bad.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

[02fanatic]

One big problem is the awful quality of replacements door seal rubber...makes closing the doors an absolute nightmare (should not have to slam them shut!)...good seals form to the door gap when closed, but the seals I bought when restoring my '72tii 12 or 13 years ago are still "hard", so the door gaps are not what they should be.  Doors were hung perfectly by the body shop too!  Honestly, I believe this is "the" biggest problem with doors looking "bad" when they might be perfect otherwise!

[Mike Self]

Two wear points that are hard to fix...hinge pins and the door catch plate.  When the hinge pins wear, it makes the door sag when it's opened; Then why you close it, it must be slammed to make the latch catch properly.  That wears the catch.  The hinge pins are difficult to lubricate and even harder to remove.  Not even sure if they're a replacement part...

 

And besides the apparently poor quality of recently manufactured replacement doors, the hinges are welded to the body, so can only be adjusted from the door end.  Thus if the body is even slightly tweaked in the front, it can misalign the hinges to the point where the adjustment range on the door is exceeded.  If the hinges bolted on at both ends, adjustment would be much easier.

 

mike