I have managed to fix the rear door handle alignmentOké, I have to wait for nice weather and a moment that the car won't be being used for a couple of days ... to Rene-S ... have you found a video for the rear doors or are you going to go for it without? Let me know how you get on and I'll do the same here
This video shows how to take out the rear door handle entirely, which I didn't do. I simply loosened the bolts and re-adjusted it:
I am fortunate enough to have an uncle with a garage that I could borrow. Doing this outside without nice weather is a bit of a risk.
Counter-intuitively, I thought my handle was too low. But it actually needed to be EVEN LOWER. It would snap back inside when stuck when I lifted it, so that was odd. I could also see scratches on the top of the handle, so that makes sense that it needed to be lower. The handle presents kinda wonky in an arch, which makes it pop out higher than you think.
BE WARNED: You need to get spare door panel clips. They are ALMOST guaranteed to break. See: Parts Catalog
Part name: CLIP, HEART FLEX W WSHR 70 LBS RETENTION
Number: 1025401-00-A
I called Tesla service to order 20 of these. They sent me to a local service center to pick them up. They cost €0.30 each. Not having them on hand when they break is terrible, so get yourself some.
Some tips:
- Disable car alarm!
- You can still extend and retract the door handles by pressing the lock/unlock button on the screen, even though the doors are open. You can't do this with the key (even though I've seen this in some videos?)
- Pull out the speaker grill, then you have a very easy place to grab and pull the door panel. It's very easy, just put your nails in the edge of it and pull as uniformly as possible.
- Have some kind of step or box nearby so you can put the doorpanel on it while you unplug the cables
- Study the video I linked for the connectors. There's 3 different types. I had the most difficulty with the blue/black cable he shows here:
- After loosening all 4 bolts of the handle, you can play around with it and just tighten the 2 that are easy to reach until it's good. Do some proper testing before tightening the other 2.
- Test again after fastening all 4 bolts and before putting on the panel. It might change positions slightly after doing this. Taking the panel off again is a pain + might break the clips again.