Hey guys, looking to buy a civic and I spotted this detail on the door. How does this happen? And will I need to replace the entire door or just the door panel?

Here’s a picture

 

An impact

Probably just the door panel.
If you need to know with certainty, remove the door panel and inspect.

 

Hmm got yah, don’t know if I’ll be able to remove the panel since I haven’t bought the car yet, planning to go check it out soon. Can’t be that serious right?

 

Depends on what you find behind the door panel.

 

This is a common problem on EK door panels. The plastic gets brittle with age. Heavy leaning or impacts cause the damage you have pictured above.

 

If the window isnt shattered and still goes up and down without any nasty noises it most likely isnt that dented up underneath.

After thinking on it for a second the rods for the door handle are prolly the most likely thing to be damaged.

 

people using their elbow to open the door in the wrong spot.

 

makes sense, owner did mention both windows had trouble going down but the other door panel isn’t damaged. I haven’t checked it out yet but hopefully it’s just the window regulators.

 

I figured it is a common problem, have seen several civics like that. How rare is it to find a door panel in the junk yard for that model?

 

They are not uncommon.

 

the plastic used on the panels of all 96-00 becomes brittle with age. I repaired mine with fiberglass after getting tired of using epoxy to glue back together. But i regret even using glues as this is thermo plastic and plastic welding would've been easier. As for recovering because the vinyls going to crease or rip it’s actually pretty easy to find near identical glue down with 3m 90/70 and heatgun to shrink corners/ glue down. Before recovering sand and smooth plastic/fiberglass/glued/welded seams.

Oh and if fiberglassing to patch it wont bond to plastic so take old cotton blend shirt and glue it to the good parts and then you can apply resin to patch.

-dns