Polo 6C door card reinstallation issues

[R826583]

I took my Polo to get its windows tinted a few days ago. The place did not reinstall my door cards correctly. There were gaps as wide as my finger between the card and the door metal:

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I don’t trust them to reinstall it correctly without breaking more connectors (several had marks and little snapped plastic pieces all over the inner door assembly). I’m going to dispute this with them in a few days when I go back. For now, I wanted my door cards to be on correctly, so I removed them myself using the VW general interior repairs manual.

I managed to remove the door cards just fine. However, reinstalling them has been nothing but painful. Given the tint shop did not install the cards correctly, I believe they may have moved some of the clips around. Let me get into this:

Starting at the front doors, there are push-in clips that mate to the holes in the door which are very manageable to use:

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^^these clips mate into the following holes:

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My issue is with the slide-in clips:

IMG_1911.jpeg (1.08 MiB) Viewed 773 times

^^which mate into the following hole:

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The issue is… how am I meant to engage this clip!!! I cannot warp the door panel into engaging with it after trying for 30 minutes. My doubts about this clip come in where I see some YouTube videos show Polo 6R/C door removals that don’t even have this slide-in clip. They only have the above push-in clip. My only option right now appears to be to remove this clip entirely and try to reinstall the door card without it. However, I wish to do the job properly. Are both the push-in / slide-in clips in the correct place? ETKA and erWin don’t show exact positioning of the clips (to the best of my observation).

If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated! Please let me know if I need to post more photos of anything specific or explain anything else. (I have the same issue with the rear doors, but I just want to get the front door cards reinstalled first).

[iichel]

take out the last clip too and put it into the door card. it's the same as all the others, only the top disc is missing.

[R826583]

Sorry iichel, I’m not entirely sure what you mean. Would you mind elaborating a little bit?

[iichel]

IMG_1911.jpg (1.08 MiB) Viewed 737 times

you can pull this one out as well, put it in the door card and re-assemble

[R826583]

Unrelated… but I’ve updated my door panel photo posted above as one of the red circled push-in clip holes was wrongly circled by me.

IMG_1904.jpeg (1.08 MiB) Viewed 737 times

[R826583]

IMG_1911.jpg

you can pull this one out as well, put it in the door card and re-assemble

iichel you are amazing! That is very clever. I don’t know how I didn’t think of that

take out the last clip too and put it into the door card. it's the same as all the others, only the top disc is missing.

I am still a little confused about which clip is the “last clip” and the “top disc is missing”.

[iichel]

pull out the clip you're pointing your finger at and I'm sure everything will add up

[R826583]

I see now! I thought you were referencing another fastener that wasn’t correctly seated.

Thank you very much for the help. Your solution will also fix my issue with the rear door cards.

[iichel]

Good, I think my explanation got lost in translation haha. Good luck, hope it will seat up nicely.

[R826583]

The doors went on with great success while I am awaiting the delivery of the replacement parts that were broken. I have managed to locate and order all required parts. However, there is a metal insert that sits in the plastic of the door card where the lower-most bolt sits. Here are some photos of the metal insert:

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The metal insert is used for this bolt:

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I am unable to locate a part number for the metal insert. I believe it is part of the plastic door card assembly when ordered at the factory. Is there a generic name for this metal insert? Two are missing from the door cards. I believe it is rather important is I can clearly feel the plastic not liking the bolt being driven into the metal panel when the metal insert is missing from the door card.

[iichel]

Yes the rings are part of the door upholstery indeed. You can substitute any metal ring from the hardware store. It is intended to distribute pressure from the bolt.

[R826583]

Do you perhaps know what such a metal ring would be called to search for the correct one? The size would be M6 given by ETKA, so maybe M6 metal collet… which doesn’t show anything useful on Google images, so I not sure what to search for.