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2013 DRIVERS DOOR ARM GRIP HANDLE BREAKING

My 2013 also suffered the dreaded door panel arm rest crack. After sticker shock of replacement panel decided to try and repair the crack before buying a new panel. I saw a youtube video where someone repaired a broken tab on a front bumper cover (
). Pulled the top cover of the arm up and used couple of spring clamps to hold it back so could of sort of access the cavity of the arm rest. Used the process outlined in the video and it actually seemed to work, but the arm rest still had a lot of flex and I figured it would crack again. So then I used some JB weld PlasticWeld Epoxy putty (https://www.jbweld.com/product/plasticweld-epoxy-putty). Pretty much filled the cavity in the arm rest, now the arm rest is more sturdy than it was before the crack, and more sturdy than the passenger side door which is not cracked. It has been over a year and it is still doing good, overall cost was less than $20 for super glue and the JB weld which is a lot better than having to drop $400+ for a new panel.
 
Add me to the list of casualties. My interior door handle also likes to stick open too, so looks like I have to take care of that as well.
 
I am working this with my 2013. My plan is a steel strap through the handle wrapped in fibreglass/resin. Then fill any gaps in the handle with spray foam. Will update in the next few weeks.
 
Well... I neglected my broken armrest for a while. Finally, the black plastic behind the vinyl grip snapped as well. And then I pulled out maybe 15-20 random cracked white plastic pieces. Hard to believe the plastic inner structure would crack in that many places. It seems the plastic wasn't up for the task. I think age got to it. This may not have anything to do with how the armrest is used (forces applied, etc). Perhaps simply heat/cold or just time is degrading the structure over time and making it extremely brittle.

I think mine is in such bad shape that I will go ahead and order a new panel even though expensive. Cheapest I've found so far is $430. If anyone knows a better place to get one ,please chime in, lol. There are actually 2 different panels depending on whether you have "power lumbar" seats or not. If you order one, make sure you get the right one.
 
Well, as it turns out there was nowhere to order that interior door panel that didn't also want 200 dollars to ship it. So really, the cost of obtaining one of these panels is closer to $600. GM should really be at least helping us out here, as this is a direct result of poor craftsmanship. Those panels should be marked down 50% at least. The plastic they chose was poor quality and crumbles right after the warranty expires (lol). Anyhow, I will post a picture of what I have done in the meantime using a piece of wood. It is working well so far, but it would be nice to have a better solution. Posting pics so others might benefit:

1) The crumbling poor quality GM plastic that is inside of our doors


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2) before repair

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3) after I re-enforced with wood.


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The hardest part to think about when adding wood re-enforcement is *where* exactly to attach the ends. I chose to drill through the black plastic tabs where the white (crumbling) plastic is anchored. I drilled diagonal holes through the wood on both ends and used uv resistant cable ties to attach. Its not super solid, but the black plastic does not appear to be crumbling like the white does.
 
I had nearly identical images and situation to the above post (so glad they put up pictures because I didn't take any.

I did things a little differently but with the same end result.

I happened to have a piece of 3/4" aluminum about 1/8" think - think "flat bar". I cut a piece to about the same size as the wood used above and then used super glue to hold that in place on the broken black part of the handle (the back side in pic 2 above). I also used some super glue on the crack on the black part of the handle before doing this. The flat bar reinforced this - having glue on both sides of the crack.

After that dried it was actually strong enough already (at least I think it was) but I didn't quit there.

I reset the "leather" as best I could to factory by seating it in the seams and so forth, then tightly wrapped the handle in plastic wrap and then duct tape being careful to preserve the shape as best I could with the tape.

Pumped in some spray foam from the back of the door panel (it did not take a lot, maybe a 3 second pull on the trigger). About 4 hours later I removed the tape and plastic wrap. While it wasn't totally cured yet, I could tell it was going to be amazing.

The next morning, it was. Rock solid. So thankful for these forums.
 
Mine had been quickly repaired during the previous ownership and was getting more loose even though I was very gentle when pulling the door closed.

Took the door panel off and secured an aluminum bar they had used similar to above, and repositioned it better and secured with screws this time.

Epoxy used to stiffen areas that had broken.

Put the door panel back on and pumped a generous amount of automotive adhesive that nearly hardens into the handle area, put a thin foam strip inside across the top to keep the handle firm to the touch as original, then added a little more adhesive back where the seam is and wrapped in a similar way .

Turned out very well and has help up well the last two years.
 
My 2013 Avalanche has no assist grab bar when entering on drives side. ..I've been holding on and using door arm rest as a grab bar since you can put your hand thru it and as a help to get into truck. The underside and back side of the rest has broken and completely cracked in both spots. I went to a Chevy dealer and they said this is very common and Chevy will not doing anything to help replace it. Have any of you experienced this and did Chevy give you the same answer..Thanks!
We have a 2011 Chevrolet avalanche that we had replaced the door panel on the driver side because of the problem and then you took a nice microphone filament towel and play some wire ties on both sides to hold it right there around the handle right and use wire tires holding place
 
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