Arm Rests Are Deforming

[Roylpope]

The front door arm rests on my 2000 Camry with leather interior are deforming and pulling away from the control panels for the window and door lock buttons. The gap between the control panel and the edge of the arm rest looks terrible. Only have 65000 miles and it has always been garaged.
Wondering if anyone else has this problem and if there is a fix other than new arm rests.
Also be nice to know if there is a TSB for defective arms rests.
Thanks,
Roy

[lenjack]

I've had this on two '98's, non leather, at about the same mileage.

[Roylpope]

What, if anything, did you do about it?

[kpszar]

It happened before I received my 99 Camry from my parents, It happened in like 2002-03 when the car only had about 25,000 miles or less. I guess it is Toyota's craftsmanship like there exterior door handles. I tried putting gorilla glue but it does not hold. I have about a 3 cm gap on passenger side, and drives me nuts looking at it. I have a feeling that the driver is going soon also, It has some play to it.

[lenjack]

i ignored it. Didn't get progressively worse.

[Mike Gerber]

I had the dealership fix this for me on my 98 Camry. They did it for me as a favor, so the price was right. They just removed the power window and door lock control panel from the driver's side armrest and applied a 2 part epoxy down inside the arm rest area. The actual area will become obvious when the control panel is removed. Then they just clamped it together with a couple of small c-clamps over the area, with something flat on the outside of the paded armrest area to give it some even clamping force. Left it that way for about an hour to set up and then removed the c-clamps and reinstalled the control panel. I think something like a mousepad between the c-clamps, the bar, and your leather armrest would work well to protect the leather. I had it done to both armrests on my 98 at different times. My driver's side went first. The passenger side about 2 years later. Worked perfectly. Sorry that I can't provide pictures as that car was totaled about 19 months ago.

Mike

[98CamryLE]

This happened on my old 1998 Camry too. (A very common problem) I put up with it for about 6 months and then used an industrial strength super glue that dried almost instantly. (I don't remember what kind it was, but it was in a yellow tube) It worked, and the panels looked like new. I kept the car for another 3 or so years and it never separated again.

[joede]

try TSB BO01198

[Roylpope]

Will try the TSB on my "not so friendly" Rusty Wallace Toyota dealer. May wind up using glue as suggested.

Thanks to all,
Roy