How to Install Front Drivers Side Door Check 2001-07 Toyota Highlander

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

When you open your door, it doesn't want to stay open all the way, it wants to close back in on itself. This one's not too bad. Some doors get really loose and you'll open it, and it'll just close right away. There is a door check in here, and this one's pretty worn out. Usually they have some grease on them, but what this does is it keeps the door from opening too far and damaging the hinges, and hitting the fender. It also helps hold the door open so that it doesn't want to close on you. So this one can be replaced, and the door will stay open without closing by itself.

Open the door. To remove the master window switch we're going to use the plastic trim tool. You can get these from 1AAuto.com. Otherwise, you'd have to use a flat bladed screwdriver, and you could damage your trim with the hard metal. These are nice, soft plastic, and then kind of get underneath here, it's a little tight fit, and kind of slide it to the middle. There's a clip, we're going to push in this way, and at the same time pry up to pull the master window switch out of the door panel. Put this aside here. Now you can unlock the connector. There’s a tab here, push down and pull out on the switch to pull it out. Put the master window switch aside.

We need to remove this little door handle pull. This little pocket here, where your hand goes. Use the plastic prying tools to kind of go underneath to kind of catch the metal and then pop it up, just like that, and if this side doesn't come, you have to do the same thing, there's a similar clip, pop it up, pull it out, see what you were doing is you were going underneath, pushing in on this metal tab to unlock it.

To remove this black trim cover, take the plastic prying tool, reach in here, just pop it out, and pull that right out. You need a small flat blade screwdriver to carefully open this little door here to expose the screw that's behind it. Use a Phillips head screwdriver to remove the screw. Take the plastic prying tool, there's a slight opening just above the lock, push the plastic prying tool up, and then pop it up off, pull it down so it pulls down from this one. That needs to go out this way, and then you'll have to move this. So you're unhooking it by going this way, and then you're just feeding it off the lever.

To remove this push clip, actually push in on the center. It unlocks it, and then you can take the other side of your plastic prying tool and get underneath it and pry it right out, then to reuse it. Just push it right back out through, and put that aside. Remove the Phillips head screw that was inside our opening for our little cup here, pull handle. Using a Phillips head screwdriver.

The rest of the door panel is held on with clips along the edge. As you pull this off you will need to unplug the courtesy light that should be the only thing that is plugged into the door panel. You just kind of reach underneath, and if you need to, you can use a plastic trim tool, but there's a little bit of a finger hold here I can get it in, get my fingers in, and pull out. And we're going to lift up off of the steel part of the door. The door panel kind of hooks around the top, so lift up and straight out. And the only thing plugged in, I can turn this, so I can see it, is the courtesy light. You’re going to push in on the lock, pull it right out, and we'll put our door panel aside.

Door speaker is held in with three 10mm bolts. They do have Phillips head in them. You could use a Phillips head, but I'm going to use a 10mm ratchet and socket ratchet. It's a lot easier. Before I unbolt it, I will unplug it, push up on the lock, and pull the connector out. These are actually just self-tapping bolts going into grommets. Put that aside. Grab onto it. Probably has a little bit of a gasket there that actually seals it in, there's our door speaker.

Door check is held in with a 10mm bolt here, and then two 10mm bolts here. Once it's unbolted, you'll have to go through the opening in the door panel, and then out through the speaker opening. Be careful when you remove this, because the door can swing further than it normally does, and also where you're working in here. Don’t pinch your fingers with the door closing.

Start by removing this 10mm bolt, using a 10mm socket and ratchet extension. Put that bolt aside. I'm going to take off the extension. I can carefully push the door open a little further. It’s going to get on the stops in the hinges. I'm going to reach up inside the door with one hand, and hold the door check in place while I remove the last bolt. Slide the door check out. Have to spin it around a little bit. Maneuver it through the hole. There’s that door check. Just be very careful there's nothing to hold this door open or keep it from swinging too far right now. Here's our original door check from our vehicle, and a brand new one from 1AAuto.com. This one is nice and tight. Not worn out.

You can see where this one is worn out. There’s two D tents. There’s one under here and one here, so two stopping points when you open the door. I can move this by hand, and it doesn't even want to really stand that first one. That would be closed, then open. It kind of stays on this one. This one here—it's really hard to open. I'm going to need the levers of the door to do it. So that's good. This one's nice and tight. It’s brand new, and it'll work great. It’s great for you.

Feed the door check up through the speaker opening. Slide opening in the door panel here. I'm going to hold it in place. I'm going to get the bolts started in it. There's no adjustment to this. It just lines up with the holes. And you install it. I can carefully let the door close a bit. In time, I'll line it up. Get it started. Tighten it down. Tighten up these bolts. This procedure will be the same for all of the door checks in a vehicle.

Put the speaker back in place. It does have a hook, and the connector is on the top. So I'm going to slide it up into place, and then line it up with the green grommets here that 10mm self-tapping bolts are going in to. Let me get one caught, and get the other two caught. Since I have them both caught, tighten them all down. Plug the speaker back in. Click when it locks in place.

If one of these clips get stuck, you can just take a trim panel tool, pull it in here, pop it out and put it back in your door panel and reuse it. This went in down here—kind of push them in place. Plug in the courtesy light and there we go. The top of the door panel is kind of curved—it's going to hook over the metal frame, so I'm going to start by going up in here. It doesn't matter if the window is up or down. Hang it over it, and then we'll get it in place. Make sure that your master window switch harness is accessible, and now we can push it into place on the clips. It will snap into place. Just go around the door, and push them in place. Put a push clip back in.

Reinstall the screw that was under the door pull handle. Reinstall this door handle pull, the arrow points toward the inside, push it in, just like that. Reinstall this cover. It has a hook that's going to hook into here in the black plastic, so we're going to lift that up and slide it this way. Get it hooked first, and then push this in and we reinstall the screw.

Reinstall this black A-pillar cap. It just slides in place and then snaps in. Put the harness back in. It will click when it locks in place. There's a tab here that will slide underneath, and then this metal tab is going to push into this opening here.

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