DirkvR

Hi folks, my name is Dirk and have had my '01 TT roadster since 2005. Having moved to FL 3 years ago , the door panel upper edges started peeling up along the windows. This is due to the vinyl shrinking in the heat and pulling on the underlying plastic inner panel. The inner panel plastic is cracked to pieces along the upper edge. Has anyone attempted to repair this with say strips of aluminum and epoxy or any other practical way? Cannot find anything anywhere using search. Upholsterers won't touch it and Audi no longer makes these since 2012. Interior is baseball amber.

drdavemail@gmail.com

Ive got the baseball interior too, and both door panels have peeled back, cracked and spread it inner glue over the windows when the window goes up and down! Been to several parts yards, and searched online... all the available panels have deteriorated in the same way. And they do not make this panel in after-market. So I am trying to find a way to finish that upper edge with something that can fit over the vinyl and hold the plastic in place. Aluminum would be good being rigid enough to hold down the edge, and bendable enough to mold and curl around the top edge that is in-glued. No answer to that yet. When I come up with that answer, and how to fabricate it, could probably sell a few thousand right off the bat! Just not worth buying a used panel, if you can find one, knowing that if it does not already come in-glued, it will.

Dr Dave

Jeff Young

Has to be a fix. Any ideas?

Wendell Allen

Wow, what a PITA. I just went through this. There are plastic “rails” for lack of a better term that are under the top edge of the door panel, where the black vinyl (at least in my case black) wraps over the edge of the door panel. The vinyl is glued to the rails. But the rails are what came loose to allow the vinyl to begin dragging on the window. I had to remove the door panels from the car, re-glue what vinyl had come loose back down, clean off ALL of the old glue from the rails and door, and use Gorilla Glue and clamps to glue the rails back into position on the door panels. I did this about two months ago and so far they’re still holding. You’ll want to take your time with this and do it right. It bears repeating, be sure and clean off ALL of the old glue between the rails and door panel. The rails have to sit flush against the door panel in the proper position or you’ll have gaps that the glue won’t fill and not have full contact with both the rail and door panel. I found out the hard way if you half a$$ this part of the deal you’ll end up doing it again.

RussellRR

Every TT will eventually have this problem. The easiest and cheapest solution that will take about 1-2 hours is the following. What I did was remove the door panel and separate that plastic strip at the top of the panel that slides over the door frame. It is likely not in good shape - cracked, pieces missing etc. Use a tiny screwdriver and scrape ALL the GLUE out of it. Use acetone to continue to get the glue out until there is NON left. Like I said about an hour. Be sure to clean the door panel side as well. Next buy black door guards. They are plastic strips that go on the door edge that prevents your door edge from chipping. Do an Amazon search on "car door trim guard" they are 11$. On the door panel use the door guard strip to press over the edge at the top and hold the panel vinyl cover in place. It might be hard to use a single piece of the door guard to do this the whole way - if so use pieces of it. put it all back together - it will look good, hold forever, not be seen and no more glue - easy and cheep solution. Good luck
.

Martin Badrov

RussellRR: I just did the repair as you instructed and the results are fantastic! I would have never come up with your solution. I have been trying to figure out how to solve this eyesore, your solution is perfect! Thank you for sharing and much appreciated.

BarbaraSteele

I registered on this forum just so I could say THANK YOU!!!!!
I have searched forever for a solution for this issue!
My husband wanted to give up and get another door panel, but I reminded him that the same issue would occur on another panel,
so it was best to fix the one we have. (We have had several VAG vehicles over the years, so we have had to get a bit crafty sometimes!)
It is in very nice shape besides the top trim and all the goo leaking out!
Fixing this will make a nice Father’s Day surprise.
May your kindness in sharing your hack come back to you tenfold!

C2SGuy

I ordered a roll of the door edge guard as mentioned. This weekend I removed the door panels to have a look. The inner belt molding (with glass flock) had also become loose from the door. I ended up cleaning up all the old adhesive and rebonded that with JB Weld Plastic. Then I did the same on the edged of the upper trim panel where the material wraps. I reinforced it by adding a thin piece of cured pre-preg carbon to add extra structure to help prevent that plastic from breaking again. Lastly I secured the vinyl material back to the door card structure using the door edge guard as purchased from Amazon. Worked out great!

hagakurejunkie

It's trash. I screwed with this crap for like two years, then I just bought a new set of door cards, painted them and they look great now. You can't fix it. I tried for years to do it and failed.

dh53

You mean this problem?! On my to-do list this week.



Can anyone recommend which trim guard works for them? I did the Amazon search and got 8,000 products. Obviously I can filter that down a lot, but in general some are extruded rubber/plastic, some are molded over a metal core, some have an adhesive strip to hold them in place, there are a variety of heights and widths, etc. Some example pics: