Door Handles.

[DMCVegas@xxxx]

As someone who's door handle recently broke (passenger side-whew!), I 
too will be ordering door handles shortly. But something that Wayne 
A. Ernst said got me to thinking. He said, "How many cars on the road 
today with brand new plastic handles will even be drivable 19 years 
from now?" Which in turn made me think about why the handles on the 
DeLorean are prone to failure. It's not a poor quality of plastic, 
nor is it a design flaw from the factory. It's the way we open our 
doors...

When opening the doors, I have always lifted the entire door up by 
it's handle without using my thumb. A gentler way I've found now is 
to place my thumb on the crease of the door for leverage, and then 
pull the handle. Then using only enough pressure to hold the handle 
in place, I let the door rise slowly by itself untill the latches are 
clear of the striker pins. From here I can let go of the handle, and 
reach around to push the door up with my finger tips if I want the 
door to go up a little faster. Which when you think about it is the 
exact same way that you would normally open a traditional car door. 
Since the DeLorean was truly the only mass produced car with 
manual/mechanical gull wing doors, this is probably wasn't something 
that the factory could ever have forseen in 1981.

For myself, I feel that the metal handles are not just an option, but 
an insurance policy of sorts. I always planed on getting the metal 
handles, but it turns out that my car wanted then sooner then I 
thought! :) Using this method should greatly reduce the amount of 
stress the plastic in the handles is exposed to. Just thought I'd 
share this with everyone who maybe concerned with accidently breaking 
thier door handles.

-Robert
vin 6585