Interior parts like door panels, pillar garnishes, headliners, and other interior trim elements are essential to make vehicles’ interiors attractive and comfortable. Without them, car interiors would be almost naked, with metal surfaces everywhere and, while this style could be great for a racing car, it’s not good attractive for everyday vehicles,.
Trim is an important part of a vehicle’s identity; it’s what makes each model unique. Automakers and their marketing and design departments are aware of this and spend lots of resources on interior design and materials. There are times when the trim becomes one of the defining factors for people to buy a car rather than another.
Over time vehicles interiors were also designed to keep the passengers safe, isolate external noises, vibrations, and more.
These parts are often overlooked until it’s time to replace or repair something beneath them, restore the vehicle’s interior, or do any job that requires removing them.
Trim components are held into the car’s body using automotive clips and fasteners.
There are several types of automotive fasteners and clips. Their shape, size, material, fastening method, and other characteristics are defined by factors such as where the part will be fitted, how much stress they will have to endure, the vehicle’s age, make, type, and more.
Let’s take door panels as an example. It’s been a while since car door panel clips have been made of plastic. Old cars have their door panels held by metallic automotive fasteners.
Many metal panel clips snap in the same way as plastic clips while others are bolts or screws. When working with door panels and other interior components, a common problem is broken or missing clips.
Automotive plastic clips tend to become brittle with the passing of time, heat exposure, stress, and other factors. The effect of time is not good for the metallic door panel clips either; they can rust, lose their elasticity, wear out, get deformed, etc.
Loose door panels can be annoying and noisy and it gets even worse when car door panels can’t be put back in their place because some clips broke or got damaged while the panel was being removed.
It can be really overwhelming and it is one of the reasons why many people who have already struggled with this job in the past avoid doing it again.
It seems that most designers create these parts to make them easy and fast to install at the assembly line, but they don’t take into account future repairs, which would require removing and reinstalling the part.
Many OEM parts snap great the first time, and then it is a matter of luck whether they will snap back right into place many more times. Door panels and trim parts are delicate, and they need to be handled carefully; there are even special tools to remove them.
However, original worn-out clips can break even if they are removed with care, and it’s hard to know their condition until it’s too late.
Another problem with door clips is that they are expensive and/or hard to find. The worst case is when they are discontinued. It can be really despairing.
My Recommended Online Automotive Fastener Supplier
Unfortunately, there isn’t a formula to predict how long auto body panel clips may last. There are many variables to consider: for example, where the car was stored, how many times the panel was removed before, and if so, how it was handled, and other circumstances.
The good news is that some automotive bolts and nuts suppliers like East Coast Bolts are aware of this problem and make thousands of different fasteners, solving the problem for many professionals and car enthusiasts and enabling them to easily find the parts they are looking for at reasonable prices.
East Coast Bolts manufactures fasteners for new vehicles and classic cars. They sell stainless steel fasteners, regular nuts and bolts, and a countless variety of plastic clips for cars, trimming sundries, and other kinds of fasteners.
An interesting feature about their products is that they are as strong as or stronger than the original parts. On their website, you will find a massive catalog with thousands of parts, and they can be searched by OEM part number.
Among their very interesting products you can find master kits for vintage cars. East Coast Bolt’s classic master kits are made for the 1965 to 1978 Ford Mustang, including the Shelby models, Chevrolet Camaro, Chevelle, Chrysler B-body cars, and others.
There are classic master kits for the engine, body shop, interior, and combined kits. These kits bring all the necessary nuts, bolts, body shop clips, and fasteners needed to put a vintage car back together.
Something really interesting about these kits is that all the parts included are OEM and year correct; these are not generic kits, which ensures that they will always fit. Another interesting feature is that all the bolts have the right head markings and finish, and the plastic parts are made of high-quality materials.
They also have a wide variety of clips and fasteners for modern domestic and import cars, making the task of working with door panels and other trim components less stressful and more straightforward, knowing that there are perfect-match clips available if needed.
Final Words
If you are planning to work in your car’s interior, don’t leave anything to chance. It’s best to buy a master interior kit and replace all the trim fasteners at once instead of taking the risk of installing worn-out pieces that won’t hold the panel as they should, or that could break, forcing you to leave the job undone until you get a replacement.
Sometimes a door lining will still seem to be firm even with some broken or missing door panel clips. Leaving it like that will over stress the clips that hold the lining in place, which
will eventually end up damaging them until the point when the door panel will start to loosen. Always try to use the right amount and type of panel clips and fasteners to secure your trim parts safely. I hope you find this information helpful and encouraging to get down to work on tasks that require removing trim elements or refreshing the interior of your vintage car with an awesome restoration kit that will make it look as good as new.