I'll try and make this short-I want it to be informative for anybody else that encounters this issue.

Everybody talks about replacing the clips when you break them during the removal of the door panels, but I have not seen many talk about what you do if the area you attach the clip to is broken. Last November I bought leather door panels from Apsis. When I went to install them I saw that one of the clips had broken off, but the area you attached the clip to was also broken. That's the risk you take buying nicely covered leather door panels. You are getting somebody's core return and you inherit whatever issue they had. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal-and it wasn't at 1st.

Then after some time the bottom of my door panel came loose, I'd push it back in but after time it would just come loose again.

So in February 2019 I took the door panel off and tried to glue a clip to it (pictured below). I also added some double sided tape for extra support next to where the clips attach-just in case. And that all held up fine....until a couple weeks ago. I could tell because while driving I would get this high pitched rattle that would go away if the passenger door panel was pressed and sure enough, I looked and the bottom was coming off again. So I looked around on the forum and then did a good search and found this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/261191736700

I thought I'd might as well try it. For $20 it's not going to hurt. Although I just could not wrap my head around the fact that they said it was pressure fit. So I took my door panel off and noticed the clip I had glued on had detached and another one broke. I left the old glue because it seemed to make it a tight fit-which I wanted. As you can see, it does work. We'll just have to see if this holds now for the long term.

Photos below are from the original glue job and today's fix with the ebay product...

 

I just got those same panels and installed them last week.
I broke 2 of the plastic fasteners when I removed my panels, but fortunately my Apsis panels were in good condition and all I had to do was transfer my fasteners over to them.
I posted a thread to see if anybody had 2 extras, but after no one replied with any, I went to Napa and got a pack of 13 for 6 bucks and change.
Glad you found a fix for yours. Damn, I wish I had invented them things, they’re expensive!

 

The way I look at it is, sure it's $20-but I couldn't go out and buy the metal and tools to make it myself and take the time to do it for $20. As long as it holds, I'm a happy camper. The clips/fasteners themselves are easy to come by as you found.

 

Pretty cool fix for the broken panel - hope it does hold up long term.

 

Thanks for this post. I just broke one of these and epoxied it back in place fully expecting it to break the next time I remove the door panel.
Just ordered one, so maybe I'll be ready for it.

 

Moving this to C5 Tech.