Fixing a Peeling Car Door Handle - Beware of Cuts

Last weekend with the holiday, we took a long drive to a family party. We took my new car and we really enjoyed the wonderful sound system. 

When Princess Three got out of the backseat, she opened the door and the metal finish coming off the plastic handle sliced her finger and caused her to bleed. 

On the way to drop Princess Two off, Princess Five was in the back seat and when she got out, she also cut her finger on the metal silver peeling off of the handle.


Princess Three's new Honda actually has the same problem with her drivers door handle. She was asking what I thought we could do to fix it and told her I would try a few things and let her know what works.

I thought I had better figure out a way to fix the situation one way or another as I didn't want anyone else to get hurt. 

I thought I should peel off the offending metal and I cut myself three times while peeling off the metal and it took over an hour. It was not easy to get it off so I took a metal fingernail file and used it to file down the edges and it worked better on the lock knob than the handle.

The lock knob looked quite good and even though I couldn't get all the metal off it, it seemed to hold the spray paint better. 

Once I got most of the metal off, I masked the door handle and knob with masking tape and paper. I purchased some bright metallic silver spray paint and figured that would be the best way to fix it. 

After dealing with peeling off the metal, cutting my fingers, taking hours to do all of this and spraying the handle, I wasn't thrilled with the way it looked as some of the adhesive that held on the metal cover took the spray paint differently.

I filed some of the areas hoping they would take the paint better. It didn't look any better. I sprayed another layer of paint but there were still the areas that I sanded that didn't look good. 

I thought it would look better than it did. It looked OK but it wasn't what I thought it would look like. 

After going through all that, I think a better solution would be to get a little of the metallic duct tape used for dryer ducts and to just use that to cover the gap and hold the metal covering down. 

I kept a large piece of masking tape and put the little metal pieces I pulled off onto it so that they wouldn't get lost or stepped on. I also stuck it onto the car so I could have it handy to stick the metal pieces on easily.

I wish I had put down some newspaper under where I was peeling the metal off and sanding as it made little metal shards on the driveway and so I took some tape and picked up all the little pieces so I wish I had put down the paper so I didn't have to clean that up as well. 

The knob looks better than the handle but in the end, it is better than the metal pieces cutting someone. 

I wonder if there is a recall on that problem. I know years ago, my sister had a suburban that had the same problem. I thought maybe I should call company and see if they send a new one if you have that problem. You would think if they are cutting people, they would recall that problem. 

I'll try the tape on Princess Threes car and let you know how it goes. 

Have a Blessed Day!