Ford Engineering Fail

This is the trim from around the driver's side door key hole of my wife's 2011 Ford Edge.

Tonight, my wife called to tell me the door handle on our 2011 Ford Edge was all "katty-wumpus," the door would not stay closed, and the door ajar light stayed on. Out in the garage I found the door handle floating free. You see, the door handle just clips in, no bolts or screws or anything.  The little piece of trim pictured above keeps the handle from sliding backwards, un-clipping and falling out.

My door handle had fallen out.  My trim piece was on the garage floor.

After recovering the pieces I went inside to search for how to fix it. Having written a "how to fix it" blog post, I know they are pretty dang popular, so I hoped someone else had beat me to it.

I started to search... Hey, I am in luck! I am not the first one to have trouble with my door. In fact there are dozens of posts about the switch in the door failing. Most all authors suggest contacting safecar.gov and report issues. Always a good idea for safety related issues in involving passenger containment, brakes, steering etc.

I started watching this video. (sorry about the VVS I did not make it), and tearing the door apart. After about seven minutes of video I got to the bit about taking the door handle off. It turns out I could have started there as it was all I needed to know to repair my door handle.

The little piece of trim is held in place by a set screw that traps the trim piece in place. That set screw squishes up against here. Well not really here.

Where I am pointing has broken off. There, that little piece of plastic, squeezed by a screw, broke off, freeing the trim to fall off the door, allowing the handle to slide to the rear, and fall off. It is a weak single point of failure that could have easily been engineered to work some other way. Ford, you blew this one.