Rubber Button for Entry Door - Quick and Easy Replacement Fix
My wife drives a 2008 CX-9 and complained that the rubber door lock button was missing from the driver's side door. She really hates trying to find the key fob in her purse to unlock the door. After finding out that it was going to cost hundreds of dollars to get it fixed I decided to get creative and make my own replacement button.
This approach is a quick, easy and, best of all, inexpensive fix for the missing rubber door lock button. This fix doesn't require removing the door handle, door panel or any other part. And you can fix it in 10 minutes.
Tools Required:
Needle nose pliers
Small flat or cube shaped piece of plastic
Hot melt glue gun
If you don't already own one, go buy yourself a hot melt glue gun or borrow your neighbor's. Find a very small piece of plastic (preferably black) and grasp it with the needle nose pliers. I found a piece of plastic that was about the size and shape of a Sen-Sen piece of candy. Most anything will do as long as its small enough to fit inside the hole. It doesnt need to be very thick. In fact, the smaller the better.
Position the plastic inside the door lock hole so that the plastic is centered against the little micro-switch inside the hole. While maintaining a grip on the plastic slowly fill the hole with the hot melt glue. Once you have a small amount of glue inside the hole you can let go of the plastic and pull the pliers out. Then continue to fill the hole with the glue shaping the glue into a "button" so that it sticks out of the hole just a little bit. Try to maintain a convex shape. Depending on how adept you are you can fabricate a half-way decent looking button that will harden in just a couple of minutes. The hot melt glue has a very rubbery feel to it when it cures and will maintain its shape even after repeated pressings. I found using the glue without the plastic backer didn't excerpt enough force against the micro-switch inside the hole to activate it so adding the little piece of plastic as a backer did the trick. If you mess up you can just use the pliers to pull the cured piece of glue out and start over again. It took me two or three attempts before I was satisfied with the job.
I used a clear glue stick because that's all I had on hand. But black sticks are also available. Black would no doubt look more professional but I wasn't too worried about it and my wife is happy again (wife happy, life happy) that she doesn't have to dig around in her purse looking for the key fob to unlock the door.
You may find from time to time that your fabricated button falls out, especially after visiting your local car wash. But I am more than happy to create another one instead of spending hundreds of dollars and hours of time to buy a dealer part.
Good Luck!
