My 2015 Fiat 500e's door hinge broke. I've done enough work in car doors to know...I don't like working on car doors. But for this price, figured it was worth a try. Jump to the point: Entirely worth it. Not a bad job.
A question I had: is there a difference between the right and left side hinges? A: No. Some pictures show the pivot pin sticking out further on one side than the other. This one, at least, the pin slides easily either way. So for this one...works on either door. Maybe too easy -- until installed, it will slide right out. A bit of tape to hold the pin in place was useful.
Word of warning: how you remove the hinge is entirely non-obvious. There are videos on the Internet about this, ten minute videos for 2 minutes of help, but here are a few suggestions from my doing it (and I promise not to say, "like and subscribe!")
1) the videos start with removing the ring around the inside door release. No idea why, pretty sure it wasn't needed.
2) The videos I saw said there were TWO screws to remove the inner door panel, one hinted that there MAY be four on some cars. There were four on mine, other two were hiding under plugs on the outside edge of the panel.
3) The part of the broken hinge attached to the door is accessible inside the door. Just cut the foam liner, you are going to rip it accidentally anyway. Cut neatly, tape it when done.
4) Putting some tape where the handle is going to try to scratch the car is probably a good idea here.
5) Once you remove the hinge nut and the broken hinge chunk, I was able to get to the screw holding the other half of the hinge to the handle THROUGH the hole I had just freed up.
6) Rather than removing the door handle completely (which involves disconnecting some linkage inside the door), I was able to just LOOSEN the bolt holding the handle significantly, but leave it attached to the car.
7) Using a super-cheap ratcheting right-angle screwdriver, I was able to attach the new hinge to the handle, still attached to the car, then flip the other half of the hinge over and put it in the hole, put nut on.
8) Test things, reassemble door.
No injuries to me. No damage to the car, no new profanity invented, and little used.
The replacement hinge is cheap pot metal. But then that's what the OEM part was, so...ok. The replacement included a new screw to attach the hinge to the handle; it was phillips bit rather than torx, so I used it. Probably the easiest thing I ever did inside a car door, now that I'm thinking about it, and perhaps the most successful. So...good place to get the part, good part, and not too difficult if you are somewhat mechanically inclined. And a lot cheaper than the dealer, and probably faster than taking the car to the dealer.
