The door arm rests or pulls creek when closing the door and overall feel overly cheap compared to most other bits in the car. Has anyone tinkered with the OEM arm rests to make them more solid feeling and or that have a feel of more quality and limit the creakiness?

 

Go to Lowes and find the foam they use for door and window seals, its like $4 for 50 feet. Pull off the armrest and take half the door handle off and put the foam EVERYWHERE in the door handle then along the inside of the armrest. Just use trial and error, use foam then test it out and if it squeaks still use more foam. Just did this two days ago and it feels like a brand new car! no rattles and squeaks when opening or closing the doors. I found that most of the noise came from the door handle closest to the speaker. You can also do this to any part of the car that has a rattle.

 

Be EXTREMELY careful with that stuff, since it expands about 200% when it "dries" and sticks better than super glue to pretty much anything. It WILL stain your interior if you get it on anything by accident. I have T-shirts and shorts that still have yellow foam residue on them from when I installed windows for a living 6 years ago!

 

We are talking about something different. The product I am talking about is a solid which will not expand at all. I think you are talking about liquid foam that you spray. Here is the exact product I used. It is pretty thin and very soft. http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?...llow&cId=PDIO1

 

Thanks for the tip, I believe I have some of the described foam with sticky backing. Seems after tinkering with cars for years, the inventory of automotive fix its, tools, fluids can be pretty substantial.

The Mini being new to me, I've felt up and around the arm rests looking for fasteners or possibly a cover to start the arm rest disassembly. Little hesitant to start prying on stuff of which I don't know how it's fastened. Anyone know how to remove the arm rest from the door panel? Do I need to remove the door panel to get to the arm rest fasteners?

 

you can look up a how to on here for pictures, etc. just look up door panel removal. But, to remove the armrest just grab the top of it and pull towards you. You won't break anything as the clips are very strong. You will probably find that most of the noise is coming from the door handle which you will need a torx (I think t20 or t25) to take apart.

 

Thanks for the tips. This installation PDF was perfect. Removed the speaker cover, door rest cover, (5) T25 Torx bolts, and (1) T30 bolt, liberally insulated the trim piece steams/contact points reassembled.

Result is a 95% improvement.

Thanks for the insight all!

 

yeah, my mistake. i assumed you were talking about spraying expansion foam in the little crevices of the door pull, which would substantially dampen any creaks, but certainly with great risk. the foam gasket tape is definitely a handy item to have around for interior work though. i've used it for various parts throughout my car as well and a bit behind my rear license plate to stop rattles.

 

I've also had this problem, and last year I disassembled the pass. side door to get the exterior door handle off to plasti-dip it. Before re-assmbling, I plasti-dipped the mating surfaces of the two halves of the interior door handle, and that silenced it.