Door Weatherstrip Seal

• Loud noise coming from outside the cabin can distract you when you are driving. Luckily, this can be easily solved by replacing your poor door weatherstrip seal.
• A weatherstrip seal is a rubber component made to seal the gap between your car door and vehicle frame. It prevents outside elements like rain, snow, and wind from getting inside the cabin.
• Door weatherstrip seals are either glued-on, clipped-on, or pressed onto your vehicle’s doors and body frame.
• Your door weatherstrip seal can fail due to several factors such as age, frequent use, moisture, temperature, and installation mistakes.
• If you want to know if it’s time to replace your door weatherstrip seal, look for visible signs of damage on your seals and check if light passes through the door panel or if there are water leaks or excessive noise when the door is closed.
• A replacement door weatherstrip seal will cost you anywhere between $10 and $270.

When you are driving, your focus should only be on the road. You must be kept from things that can potentially distract you or make you uncomfortable. If you are constantly hearing noise from outside of your vehicle’s cabin, it can annoy you and slow your reaction time. This is a common problem for cars with door weatherstrip seals in bad condition but it can be easily fixed by replacing the seals with new ones.

A weatherstrip seal is a rubber component that is used to seal the gap between your car doors and the vehicle’s frame. When the doors are closed, it ensures a tight seal, which keeps outside elements such as rain, snow, and wind from entering your cabin. This prevents water leaks, noises, and metal-to-metal contact between the doors and your vehicle’s main body.

One of the functions of the door weatherstrip seal is to help the doors fit perfectly in the door openings. This allows them to be closed tightly, eliminating any cracks or small gaps that can create rattles. Once the car door seal gets worn out, you may start hearing rattling noise coming from your doors especially when you are driving at high speeds. If you are looking to replace them, there are three types of weatherstrip seals that you can choose from based on how they are installed in your vehicle.

Glued-on weatherstrip seals

This type of weatherstrip seal is attached to the vehicle’s body frame with the use of glue. The adhesive usually lasts for a long time, but will eventually wear off since the weatherstrip seal is often exposed to various weather elements and temperature. Once the stickiness of the glue decreases, you can expect your seal to dislodge or peel off from the door frames. Vehicle owners usually glue the seal back on. But if the weatherstrip seal is already damaged, a replacement would be necessary.

Pressed-on weatherstrip seals

In some vehicles, the weatherstrip seal on the door frame is simply held by pressure. This pressed-on weather strip seal is also effective in sealing the doors and preventing elements and debris from getting inside the cabin. But just like the other types of weatherstrip seals, it can start to fall off once the rubber shrinks or gets deformed. When this happens, there is no other solution but to change the deteriorating seal.

Clipped-on weatherstrip seals

Other door weatherstrip seals are clipped on to the body frame using rubber clips or fasteners. If your weatherstripping problems stem from busted clips, you can easily replace them since they can be bought separately. But of course, if the damage is mostly on your door seal, there’s no saving it even if you use new clips to mount it. It would be better to replace the part itself.

Replacing your vehicle’s door weatherstrip seals is not difficult and won’t cost you a lot of money. However, it is still important to know the most common reasons why these seals fail so that you can avoid them if possible.

Age and frequent use

Rubber components like the door weatherstrip seals may change shape or become brittle over time. Add the beating that they take from regularly opening and closing your doors and these components are bound to wear out. If your vehicle has been with you for several years now and you haven’t had the chance to replace your door weatherstrip seal, make sure to change it once you notice symptoms of failure.

Temperature

Temperature can cause changes to your door weatherstrip seal. If the weather is hot and humid, the heat can make the rubber seal shrink or contract. Low temperature during cold weather, on the other hand, can make the rubber expand. It may also become hard and brittle. These changes may be minor, but they can speed up the deterioration of the weatherstrip seal.

Moisture

Aside from temperature, outside elements like water can also cause the failure of the door weatherstrip seal. If you are always driving under bad weather or heavy rain, water or moisture may seep into the seal and cause its deterioration from within. Eventually, the door weatherstrip seal won’t be able to keep elements away from the cabin and may allow rain, snow, or wind inside your vehicle.

Installation mistakes

If you have replaced your weatherstrip seal and it’s not properly installed, it will allow the entry of harmful contaminants to your vehicle’s interior. The tiniest gaps are enough for moisture and debris to pass through. Aside from potentially annoying you, this can also make the weatherstrip seal wear out faster.

There are several signs that you can look for to know if your vehicle’s doors are in need of new weatherstripping. If you can see light coming through the door panel when the door is closed, it means that there are gaps between your door and vehicle’s frame—which shouldn’t occur if your door weatherstrip seal is in good condition. Water leaks and excessive noise are also signs that your weatherstrip seal is not functioning as intended. You may also look for visible signs of damage on your door weatherstrip seal such as cracks, bends, or tears. If you do notice them, it is recommended to have your old weatherstrip seal replaced.

The price of a replacement door weatherstrip seal falls anywhere between $10 and $270. Available as direct or universal fit, an aftermarket weatherstrip seal is available as a single part, in sets of two or six, and as part of a kit, which is ideal if you need new weatherstripping for all your car doors.

Shopping for high-quality door seal weatherstripping for cars is easy at CarParts.com. To speed up your search, our website has a built-in vehicle selector where you can plug in your car’s year, make, and model. This will help filter the search results to parts that are applicable to your ride.