odd protrusion of the driver side door

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by hichamaziz

Can you back the pics off a bit so we can tell what we are even looking at?

LOL

[Rustyspoon]

Originally Posted by spitfire481

I have repaired damage like this on a ton of doors, of all makes. something pressed against the door skin and the sheet metal formed around the crash bar, which is part of the door frame structure and foam glued to the door skin. The only time I have seen the door skin show the line of the crash bar from temperature change is when a body shop replaced the door skin and used a non flexible adhesive between the crash bar and skin

Bang on. You win the thread!

So, took it to toyota. They where great and confirmed it was not something they had done with the window fix, nor was anything loose. But they had no idea what could of caused it. Did not charge me anything either. Very good of them. No in house body shop though.

Took it to a body-shop, they identified it as a hit and run. Someone brushed lightly against it some time ago, and it slowly worked its way into the crash bar. (probably from me closing/opening the door) Interestingly enough, they somehow hit it hard enough to compromise the sheet-metal, but not hard enough to leave scratches.... learn something new everyday.

Only $2800 to fix. Due to the door being hardened steel it is not workable. Whole door shell needs replacement.

Thank you everyone for helping solve the mystery. Sorry it ended up being so boring in the end, anti climatic.

[Subsonic]

Originally Posted by Rustyspoon

Only $2800 to fix. Due to the door being hardened steel it is not workable. Whole door shell needs replacement.

Can anyone confirm this to be true? Hardened steel means it cant be repaired? I smell BS. I guess it would be easier to just replace the whole door...

s

[Trollhart]

Nothing in there is "hardened" (neither in the metallurgic nor the structural sense).






The crash bar is made of steel but designed to crumple on Impact.
The actual door Shell, which seems to be the issue here, is very soft and thin.


I have had several parking dents worked out of my passenger door without any problems, but I do not know if the large area around the crease would be fixable by a skilled dent removal person.


Anyway, the inner part of the door shell can be accessed either from above via the window, or by removing the door card and the transparent plastic sheet.

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by Subsonic

Can anyone confirm this to be true? Hardened steel means it cant be repaired? I smell BS. I guess it would be easier to just replace the whole door...

The metal could be worked. It's just not cost effective to do so. Working metal takes time, which costs money. Paying the labor on working that door would cost you more than just replacing it. Because that's usually the case, most body shops don't have people with the relevant skills to do it, because they never have to. So then you'd have to pay more in labor cost for that one guy who can, which makes it less likely to happen, which means less business for those guys, which means fewer of them around. And around and around it goes.

[spitfire481]

it is kind of hard to work those creases out with how thin metal is these days. the door skin metal stretches around the bar so you usually have to do some metal shrinking while straightening. it can be repaired, but most body shops would probably opt to replace the door skin