[lgrape]

I love Toyotas, but I hate the door panel material. Why in the hell did they use that yellow cast resin like material?
the crap falls apart when it gets old. I'm working on a 2003, it has mostly plastic with just a small section of the crap at the top. The edge has busted up and there is nothing for the rubber window edge trim to attach to. My older gen 2002 had the panels mostly made from the junk. I spent so much time and gorilla glue piecing those back together. I hope they got away from the crap in later generations.

 

[ftmanglona]

I would've just spend $30 on used panels at a local yard

 

[John Anthony]

Can you post a photo? My 2004 Corolla has about 376K miles and I haven't had any problem with the door panel and plastics, and I'm in a very hot climate as well. I'd like to see a photo of what you're talking about to give me (us) a better idea.

 

[75aces]

Sounds to he's referring to the foam pad on the inside of the panel.

The top trim is hit or miss IMHO. As it ages, the trim itself gets deteriorated. They were manufactured by JCI. The tabs are thin and a weak point to hold the edge trim. After so many open and close cycles, the tabs lose grip on its own.

I have yet to see a door panel completely fall apart. Best to replace it with junk yard panels. There are plenty of 9th gens in the junkyard these days.

 

[lgrape]

Most of the door panel is plastic, which seems to hold up pretty well. The very top where the window trim strip attaches is a yellowish cast resin looking crap that is brittle and breaks easily. At least this 2003 is mostly plastic, on my 2002 Corolla the whole top half of the panel was this brittle stuff. As you can see in the photos there are supposed to be tabs on the edge to hook the door panel on the edge of the door and these tabs have slots to put the window trim metal retaining tabs through. Then the metal tabs get bent over to keep the trim strip in place. I'm going to have to reconstruct something to attach the trim strip to as the door panel tabs are busted off.
Original Gorilla glue sticks well to this material. I have had success repairing these panels with Gorilla glue, thin sheet metal and foam board. Junkyard panels are the same material so I don't bother going looking since they are just going to break apart too.

 

[lgrape]

 

[lgrape]

Here I have made a new mount tab out of galvanized sheet metal from Home Depot and glued it in place with the Gorilla glue. The glue foams up to fill voids and adds 3 dimensional strength. Drawback is it takes hours for the glue to cure, and it needs to be clamped or the expanding action can move the parts around. Note my 100 year old clamp.