I was just wondering how to do this. I just broke my exterior door handle. It had been tight in cold weather before and I had always attributed it to that and only given a passing thought to the hinges being out of line. Well now that I can't even open the door from the outside it makes me think that It could have been the hinges sagging and letting the door rest ont he bolt that the locking mechanism grabs on to. I don't want to break the new incoming door handle so I thought I should look into this.

P.S.--> Mazda did a poor engineering job on those handles for as much stress as they go through...You have to lift on it to open and lock the doors and although it lasted this long I see a fatal flaw built in. It seems as though all the torque for releasing the locking mechanism lies on the short end of the handle. When you lift from the thick part of the handle it is bound to put stress and torque on the thinner end of the handle and is much more prone to flex and breakage I would think.

 

I have heard that lubricating the joints of the rod that connects the door handle to the latch can also help this. Is this true? I need to know as I am going to put the new one on Wed. hopefully.

 

You can adjust the position of the striking pin ("the bolt that the locking mechanism grabs onto" in your words). Just loosen the hex bolts and adjust it as necessary.

The hinges should stay pretty much where they are, I'm not sure you can adjust them without drilling new holes, but try moving the stiking pin.

 

And I found a significant improvement by shooting all the moving parts with spray Lithium grease. It's water resistant, and really penetrates well in the can form.

Dave