It is cake. Took me about 20 minutes on my 1996 Paseo. Buy one from ebay and take off your door panel. I hope you have panel tools and a pick set. Small hands help too!
Get a small 1/4" metric socket set with a swivel (or the wrench that can angle) or a set of short racheting gear wrenches. The nuts holding on the handle are 10mm if I recall correctly. Even if you have to buy new tools, it will be cheaper than the quotes, you will learn something, and you will have more tools. All good things!
btw, Welcome to the site. What car do you have exactly, so that we may better tell you what to do?
When it comes to working on my own car, I'm probably the biggest chicken in the world but, I too replaced my driver side door handle a few months ago and it just takes a bit of PATIENCE!!!!!
The first thing (and probably most tedious) is removing the window crank...
Next, unscrew the single screw which holds the inner door handle in place and then pull the inner door panel off carefully... the job can be done without the panel tools but, I'm sure they would have made things easier...
Once the panel is worked loose, you'll encounter a piece of plastic sheet, held in place by some tar-like adhesive.... I just got rid of that entirely... once all that has been accomplished, it's a simple matter of unscrewing the old broken door handle and replacing it with the new one...
$750 is an OUTRAGEOUS price to even, for a second, consider... Hell, you could almost buy another car for that price... $250 is not much better...
Take your time, don't get frustrated and you'll have it done in less then an hour...
Be aware that some people have been having breaking issues with eBay handles that are not OEM...
that's true. After my brother and I replaced his driver's side handle with one off of ebay, it broke less than a year later and I had to replace it again. Luckily, I had an OEM spare this time around.
Also be careful with Ebay... I bought a handle last year driver side, and the lock on the new handle called for a Passenger side one instead... I was pissed, but realized too late to send it back. The hardest part in the whole job is the damn clip that holds the lock in! Have fun its easy and looks like you have a lot of help!
Scott
It sucks, because I bought two brand new locks at the same time... I could only use one though! The thing that sucks the most is that the lock Barley moves to unlock! Oh well it works for now!
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