I had my mini painted ages ago and they painted it without the door hinge gaskets on, due to the fact it would wreck the look of the paint when it gets on the gasket and so on. My question to everyone is...do you need the gaskets?

I'm not real keen on taking off the doors to put them in as I am afraid of sratching the paint, so basically do I need them? anyone have a mini without them?

Todd

id put them on , use RUBBER ones tho not the original paper gaskets, as they absorb water and rust ya door out

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lookin for another clubby

yea put 'em on. Rubber ones is a good tip. They would absorb a little bit of movement. Without them you might get paint cracking around the hinge.

If I understand right, you have had the car painted with the doors on the car?

If so, don't take the doors off to put the gaskets on as the paint will crack off.

If the doors were painted seperately and then put on the car without the gaskets you should be OK to take the door off install gaskets and re hang the doors.

This happened to a mini I know where they didn't take the doors off to paint them and there are no gaskets on them but now if he takes his doors off the paint cracks all around the hinges.

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mutant mini 1380cc '73 UK imp-Chroma Lusion-leather interior-8 x 300W Diamond Audio Dual Voice Coil 8" subs, Phoenix Gold 4 chnl amp, Pioneer 7550 DVD, 2x Phoenix Gold A1.800d MonoBlock Amp, Focal Utopia splits, 14" chrome rims 195/40/14 tyres

Rubber Gaskets....

I thought the same thing about absorbing movement however, the guy who resprayed mine (Dawson Automotive @ Tingalpa, Brisbane) advised against using rubber as he says "ït sweats". Meaning that eventually it would cause rust. I Understand that everybody else will say "but there are rubbers everywhere around the car". I didn't want to question him as I had seen his work and still haven't seen any better.

yeah the whole paint cracking thing really doesn't sound like a good thing to me. The car was painted together as its metalic paint so they said it has to be painted as a whole other wise it would look crap. So for now I think I will leave them off and then put them on later if something ends up happening, like rooted paint work. I actually have some rubber gaskets but yeah they never got put on and probably won't for a long time. With metal on metal it probably should hold the door to the hinge better then having a gasket in between so there might actually end up being less door drop...well mabye. Thanks anyway for your oppinions, was good to know what other people thought.