You guys know that crappy door trim/guard on the bottom outside of the doors? The part that has a few cheap plastic clips holding it on and one screw.
Those things keep breaking on me every time someone open the cars doors and they hit the curb.

What are those called and does anyone know where to buy them cheap online or a good way of making them more sturdy?

thanks

 

yeah i know i hate those lower door moldings!! they only get F@#$ up on the passanger side....The only way to fix that for now is to tell my passangers to watch the f#$en door!..lol...

Im going to have to tackle that issue to i'll keep you posted...

 

I have lost friends because of those door moldings...I'm dead serious.

 

We've run early W124s for years now and have no problems with door moldings.

I think they're brilliantly designed.

Your problems are your problems and not someone else's fault.

 

blaming the design for a problem that occurs when you do something you arent supposed to do is extremely lame. in fact, i'd go so far as to say it's retarded.

its like blaming the curb for sidewall damage to your tire. you're the genuis who drives into the curb. curb ain't going anywhere, you are.

you arent supposed to open your door into a lamp post or the car next to you.

you arent supposed to put diesel in a petrol engine.

you aren't supposed to open the doors into the curb.

its not a defect. you have defective passengers.

 

Yea I agree, but still, those things could have been a bit more sturdy.

 

Whos is talking about opening a door into the curb? Our cars are not that low!! curb rash?...ok?

Ok let me explain, When a passanger opens the door it goes on top of the curb right. When the passanger gets inside the car the weight of the passanger makes the door go down on the curb and makes the molding hit the curb if it's tall enough. This bends the molding which can break those clips and if the passager pulls on it then it can also make it fall off.

Now it's mainly the fault of the passanger but it's designed poorly that's why you don't have this problem for 1990+ because mercedes got rid of these moldings!!

 

So when the space-shuttle Columbia blew up, that was the astronauts fault right? The fact that the O-rings failed due to a design flaw should be sufficient enough to pacify the families of the fallen astronauts, I'm sure.

That's an extreme example, but you get my point.

Bad designs happen. It's a fact of life. No need to ostracize someone because they're addressing a design flaw issue. Clearly this sounds like a design flaw to me. The passengers shouldn't have to be told to be careful when opening their doors if the trim was designed properly to begin with. If it hasn't happened to you, good for you. If it's happening to a lot of people.......something's up.

 

ok so on lesser cars you just end up bending metal and scraping paint off which will rust within 10 minutes of the incident. I would rather break clips.

Park further from the curb and warm people when they are getting it. Its happened before, the solution is to get out and close the door and wait for the car to move out the way instead of yankin on the door.

Brilliant

 

did the o rings fail becasue of what the astronauts did? i didnt think so.

im with you on the bad design part, but you arent supposed to open your door into the curb. period. how is that bad design? answer; its not.

if an item is used improperly you do not fault that item for its improper use. if i use my flashlight as a cane i cant complain if it stops working. thats not how you are supposed to use it. a door is supposed to be opened. but not into objects or obstructions.

one assumes that whoever opens a car door is gonna have the common sense to realise its gonna hit the curb. every passenger whos entered my car from a high curb has said "youre gonna need to pull away from the curb." thats common sense. some need to practise it.

 

Let me quote myself....i know this is the fault of the passanger but they still fall off!! Neanderthal do you even own a 86-89 300e anyways?

also can you please post something helpful....

 

I'm sorry but I can't blame my passengers for not checking the total car weight, curb height and road slant before they open a door, that's just unreasonable. As was said these guards were redesigned on the 1990's and I think there was a very good reason for that. The guards would work well to save metal but the clips are very weak and so is the plastic part that hold the one mount screw in place.

I love the car and almost everything else is very well designed, but perhaps this one wasn't tested well on crappy american sidewalks, who knows.

The point is that I was hoping to find some useful info on where to buy replacements cheap or a method of improving these guards. At this point I have resorted to epoxy application on the broken parts and it's holding but that is a desperate solution for sure.

 

LOL he owns a beemer.

 

Dude just buy them at the dealer or at some cheap mercedes parts warehouse...look in your directory, the pieces are called molding clips. They're inexpensive and easy to install, (they snap in). Just be extra careful with the doors if you're having that much trouble with it.

 

sure those little white clips are inexpensive but if the part that hold the screw gets stripped or broken then you have to buy a whole new molding and that cost good $.

everything else on these cars is tough and built well, I don't know what went wrong here. I never have this problem in any other car. I'd rather have some small scratches on the bottom of the door then deal with these flimsy things.

But I'll be working on a way to strengthen them and if it works I'll report back, for now epoxy seems to help.

 

good luck mangg...

 

my 300E 2.6 was built/ assembled in 1989. the signature leads you to believe i dont have a 124? thats a huge leap in logic. not smart.

as for posting something useful; tell your dumbass passengers to use common sense when they ride your car. its not a camry.

 

Dude you keep on going like a broken record.....I already said it IS some of the passagers fault!!.. ..I think we all agreed on that... so what other suggestion do you have other than talking *****?...

How can you compare this problem to any other car?...it's not even like a camry because they don't have lower door moldings like ours!!....you need to get better comparisons that actually make sense...

Dude do i seriously have to quote myself again? I never said you didn't own a mercedes period... I said do you even own a 86-89 300e....maybe you own a newer one with updated moldings...

Im not even going to try to reply to any of your smartass comments that im sure you going to make...

 

hahahha nice icons too

 

hahaha...."that was...Cold bloodedddd..."

 

i already made the suggestion. tell your passengers to use common sense when they are in your car. its not a camry.

thats exactly the point. your car does, a camry doesnt. in a camry they wouldnt have to worry about it would they? use some thought instead of just retorting and trying to look smart and make me look stupid.

lets approach this from another angle. theres very few people who own cars from the mid/ late eighties that are passionate about thier cars as we are. this applies to camries and accords and all manner of cars outside of porsches, vettes and BMWs. so given that, pretty much any camry that gets dinged wont matter, whereas to us it matters. our cars not just just timeless designs, but marvelous feats of engineering. this is why i care about my mercedes getting dinged, but didnt about my corolla getting smashed. i drove my corolla halfway across the country on three cylinders and would have abandoned it if it just stopped. i would never do that in/ to my benz.


wouldnt be the first time that leap in logic has been made based on my signature. nor will it be the last.

 

Ok...let's start all over...your right and do have a valid point...

Also i kinda got ticked off when you said dumbass passangers because the passanger in my car is mainly my wife...

 

im a "call a spade a spade" guy.

im not sure your wife would like me. id still be calling her names.
you shoulda seen the thread where the guys wife belittled him for selling his 124 to his brother. when she was the one who complained it should go when it kept neding repairs. he fixed most of the problems, another one came along, she said sell it, he sold it. his brother now drives the problem free car and she is complaining that he shouldnt have sold it. i told him to dump her.

but then again, this partly explains why im still single.

 

That's why i support my wife with whatever hobbies she has so she won't bring up mines....I have a 69 mustang and my benz....the argument i use is that these are "investments" when i know im just buying crap for them because i want too...lol...