How to get the door to shut like new?

caseypayne69 · Feb 18, 2008

My GT has over 240,000 miles on it. When I hope and close the door it feels like an old clunker with no precision in door design like todays cars. That quietly shut and shut firm and right you know what I mean. What can I do to get my car to shut well, like a newer car? Closing the door just shows my cars age compared to all this new car quality going around. My buddies 2002 SS doors feel just right. Makes my car feel like trash.

d232 · Feb 18, 2008

Sounds like you need to replace the hinges, or do the hinge pin fix. I need do do my drivers door also. It drops down slightly when you open the door. Anyone on here done it that can help us out?

Downshift · Feb 18, 2008

What year is your car? Mine shuts really nice. I just spray it with WD40 every once in a while and I can barely pull or push and it shuts with ease. I know what you mean though, my old car shut like a POS.

Fets · Feb 18, 2008

My door sounds like it weighs 2000lbs when it closes. It opens and shuts nice though.

caseypayne69 · Feb 18, 2008

Could the weather stripping play a role in how well a door is shutting?

Knuckles281 · Feb 18, 2008

weather stripping doesn't really play that much of a part, unless your doors are leaking or something. The reason that your friends car doors shut nicer (along with a lot of new cars today), is that there is insulation in the doors that keeps everything from rattling around, so you get no sound but a solid THUD when you shut the door. Our cars do not have this. All the equipment is just hanging within the door, so you can hear it move when the door is shut.

As far hinge sagging, the best thing to do is to just replace them. If you can find a set of good ones from a junkyard and spraypaint them, that's much cheaper that taking it to the dealership (or, the stealership as I call it

) The door hinges aren't really noticed anyway by most people, so nobody will ever know you did it probably. There are ways to fix the pin that I've heard of people doing, but I'm not sure on them or how reliable they are, so I'll let somebody else comment on that.

AaRoN · Feb 18, 2008

My pass. side door sucks. You almost have to slam it to shut it all the way.

Jrgunn5150 · Feb 19, 2008

Subframe connectors, and don't open the doors while it's jacked up if you don't have them.

Foster98GT · Feb 19, 2008

d232 said:
Sounds like you need to replace the hinges, or do the hinge pin fix. I need do do my drivers door also. It drops down slightly when you open the door. Anyone on here done it that can help us out?

My Drivers side does this...

TXbluebitch · Feb 20, 2008

same here

Goldmember · Feb 23, 2008

+3 what's this hinge pin mod? The MN12 guys have always struggled with this but I guess we SN95'ers do too.

97GT4.6 · Feb 25, 2008

Both my doors kind of sag as well. Which caused the cheap aftermarket paint job to peel off the bottom, which has now started to peel off of the bottom of my drivers side door.

Matt94GT · Feb 25, 2008

yeah i know I had a tbird and the door pins/bushings go. my passenger door sags very slightly but it pisses me off!

AaRoN · Feb 26, 2008

Matt94GT said:
yeah i know I had a tbird and the door pins/bushings go. my passenger door sags very slightly but it pisses me off!

Why do the pass. side doors always go to hell :dunno:

Jrgunn5150 · Feb 26, 2008

Because passenger's are dumb as hell and shut the door like it's a 73 F250

AaRoN · Feb 26, 2008

J.R. said:
Because passenger's are dumb as hell and shut the door like it's a 73 F250

That's so damn true...

voidfinger · Mar 4, 2008

so if the reason it sounds so bad is that there is no insulation... would a sound deadening material like dynomat correct this? I've been thinking about this b/c my convertable is one giant rattle... even with subframes...

Ciotti · Mar 5, 2008

I replaced my driver side door hinges a few months ago and the difference was night and day. The door shuts perfect now but it did cost me dam near $400 in labor because the fender had to come off to get the hinges on and off, the new ones had to be painted, and everything had to be adjusted. Everything is perfect now though, big difference as my driver side door was sagging pretty bad.

caseypayne69 · Mar 5, 2008

Ciotti said:
I replaced my driver side door hinges a few months ago and the difference was night and day. The door shuts perfect now but it did cost me dam near $400 in labor because the fender had to come off to get the hinges on and off, the new ones had to be painted, and everything had to be adjusted. Everything is perfect now though, big difference as my driver side door was sagging pretty bad.

Note to self.
Replace hinges when ready to take off fender to be painted.

Stangbangin · Mar 10, 2008

a quick fix for this problem is to open the door and grab the bottom edge closest to you and yank it up as hard as you can a few times. Then try to close it. Do this a few times. In the body shop my dad uses a special tool that attaches to the posts and then you close your door on it and it does this same thing.