Bought a used car recently. Rear door latch was seized inside the door. surely that’ll be an easy fix, I thought when I gave the seller my offer. after all, it’s over a decade old and an economy car, those cars aren’t too complicated yet.

one $12 handle to replace the one I cut off the door (and also the second half of it was broken anyways, so that was always going to be an expense), one pair of $30 long nose vise grips that didn’t even help me get a seized half of a screw out of the inner latch assembly (screw sheared immediately when I tried to remove it to take the assembly off the door), two broken drill bits trying to drill out that seized screw that the vise grips didn’t help with, $1.83 at the fastener store to replace the captured nut that the seized screw was stuck in after I just smashed it out with a hammer, 2c of dollar store epoxy to secure the replacement nut that was just slightly smaller but enough that it wasn’t held properly in the part, a die to chase the threads on the incredibly rusted screw holding the window actuator to the window (I actually already had that, but still, had to buy the set for a previous project like this), a lot of penetrant and scouring for the original problem part that was causing the door latch to seize, $180 for an ultrasonic cleaner to help clean that seized spring and the shaft joint (okay again I bought this for other reasons too in the past), 2c of lube I’ve had sitting around for ages, and then a few broken trim retaining clips and a slightly broken inner door panel and the door is good as new! y’know, but without paint matched door handles.

the replacement platch assembly part was quoted as $100 from the dealership, so I’ll take the $2 + cost of driving 15km that it was to fix the one I have. I wish it hadn’t taken me 8 hours to complete, though, once you account for all the figuring out how to open the door when neither inside nor outside handle worked, and take it apart, and get the broken part out, and clean the tape off the door paint that was stuck to it after I put it on to prevent rain entering the door from the open holes where the handle used to be, and then put it all back together. at least putting it back together was as easy as expected and took less than an hour going slow. all the other expenses, to be fair, were either inevitable or something I’d already bought for various reasons or will be able to use elsewhere (after all, he who dies with the most tools, wins)

the odds that my repair fails where getting a shop to do it, however, are not zero. also, the shop would likely have replaced the broken trim clips. I didn’t, because I don’t have them. so the door panel is also probably going to rattle a bit now.