This may be a non-problem, but I wanted to ask anyway....

The door handles on my VDP all take a fair bit of force to open. You have to pull pretty hard, and then they open almost with a "pop." Several times my wife thinks the doors are locked when in actuality she hasn't pulled hard enough. This takes noticeably more force than with other cars I own and have owned. It's certainly not a luxurious feel, but more like something that won't take the strain forever and may break.... The only time any of my other cars have felt that way, was when their lock mechanisms were iced up.

Is my VDP unusual -- or typical?

 

Do your handles move with a normal resistance and then seems to catch, which afterwards requires a lot more force, then pop when it opens the door?

My VDP does that on all of its doors too. Some doors seem to be worse than others. They have been doing this for the 7 years I have had it. Every passenger who rides in the front passenger seat thinks the doors are locked when they are trying to exit the vehicle. The interior handle feels like it could break off when it is used to open the door.

 

Yup, that's the way mine are. Not my definition of "luxurious." Should almost open with a feather touch, in my view.

 

My '03 XJ8 Base is exactly the same way...beginning to sound like this is a normal phenomenon.

 

I disagree. There should be a bit of resistance, but not as much as you claim. In the year that I've owned my 03, I've pulled all my doors' guts to swap out switches and saw a few wear items that could cause more resistance if they were missing. Fragile rubber grommets surrounding the pull-cable at friction points could be the culprit, if missing. Swapping them out with a new cable is easy.

 

I'll second squish..just did mine. Made sure everything was cleaned and tight, new cables with graphite lube before installation and now the door is perfect. Not real hard.

 

Well, another project to add to the stack! Are door cables (relatively) inexpensive? What is the best source?