Jetta rubber door trim falling off- hardware solution?

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I have a '98 Golf GL 4 door. Not sure if the trim is the same as your Jetta. But I've had the door trim begin to fall off each of the doors. When that happened, I did as your mechanic suggested, except that I did not get new trim. I used a putty knife to scrape the old tape off the trim, made sure the door was clean, put the new tape on the trim, and then applied it to the door. It has probably been at least two years since I replaced the first trim with no problems. One extra thing that I did was to place vertical pieces of tape at the ends to kind of seal the trim. Originally, the trim only had two parallel pieces that probably let water in. It doesn't take too long, and the only cost is for the trim tape. Less than $10 a roll as I recall. I would recommend using the tape rather than trying to bolt the trim on. Without the tape, the trim may still sag or buckle.

-=- Tom

Reply to
Tom D
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Salud,

I have a nice 98 Jetta GL with about 56k miles, purchased from dealer in Connecticut, CPO car. Auto tranny(hopefully not a liability down the road), 8v engine (I actually think 8v is cool). It's tame but it drives itself, i think it's idiot-proof, It won't let VW look bad except to the speed demons. A few months ago the starter switch apparently froze, apparently the starter remained engaged... these had to be replaced and the dealer actually took care of it under warrantee.

The Problem: The rubber trim on the doors is falling off leaving like 5 holes under each peace which despoils the look. My VW mechanic says are holes are for a hard plastic type trim level for another (German?) model. Dealer apparently doesn't cover this. My mechanic told me how to fix it right, but it sound expensive (anything is expensive for me). Basically you want to get new trim pieces, the special double sided tape, clean the door carefully, removing excess adhesive, etc. This is too much work and expense to me. Who knows how long the repair will last anyway.

My inclination is to find something at the hardware store that will attach the rubber strips to the door using the generously supplied holes of various sizes that are in the doors. Since the car and trim are black, I'm looking for black hardware. There is concern as to letting the windows continue to work, of course, but it looks like i've got room to play. Anybody have ideas in this realm?

The other possible solutions that occur to me are to find trim from German model that might snap into those holes? (regardless of precise fit) Or to find black plastic/rubber plugs somewhere that would at least fill in the holes. The hold sizes appear to be approx 1/4" and 1/2" ~8mm/14mm.

I thought I was going to be rolling in money when I got the car, this was a mistake, should have kept the 87 Jetta GL.

Any know-how appreciated.

peace, Pierre

(false email, please reply via newsgroup)

98 Jetta GL 89 GrandAm Le with fancy engine timebomb. (disposable transportation).
Reply to
Pierre

Long-winded question,concise answer follows:

3M Double-Sided Tape, clean all surfaces with isopropyl alcohol, remove old tape, dust, dirt, frog spit, and other impurities. Apply tape to rubber trip pieces, then peel off other side of tape and stick to car. Press with some force to adhere the tape to the car. Done
Reply to
Bob F.

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