[mousefarmer]

The previous owners of 2006 330i had the front, drivers side door all clunky with the door sounding like crap when slamming so I took off the panel and found a missing window regulator bolt, two loose ones and some broken door clips or missing ones.

The front of the door panel had an air gap between the door panel and the door frame where there was a broken clip pushing the door panel away from the frame. I suspect that over a long period of time this led to the door panel warping where its not straight.

When I put on new Chinese made clips and put the door panel on, they popped into place but then the next day I came out and saw the front of the door with an air gap again between the panel. I took out the foam pad spacers on the clips on this side and pushed back but it popped out again.

My next plan is to either by a few German OE clips for this problem area or apply some epoxy to these clips, clamp them to the door and hope it solves the problem. There is no foam padding for these clips. Has anyone else had this issue? I see that BMW has several types of clip model numbers that look all about the same.

red clip 07146962771
no foam 51411973500
foam 51418224781

Other than the foam and the color, is there any difference between these?

BTW, all of the door sounds like crap when the shutting the doors when the windows are down but I guess this is normal since the glass isn't in the frame?