A closer look at the C interior door panel

The 2018 front door panel appears to be designed with a focus on low weight and high durability. The plastics are hard but there are varying textures to keep your eyes and hands happy. Inside you’ll find a nice amount of thinsulate to help with noise levels but the plastics are still pretty thin. An opportunity exists to make the door panel feel more substantial without adding a lot of extra weight or expense. A few squares of sound dampening material will do nicely. The once thin plastics will feel more substantial (premium) and should help reduce vibrations from the door speakers. You can see in the image below, I only added a few pieces here and there. A little product goes a long way.

The front door armrest is covered in what looks like softex. The Aqua GR has an elegant looking stitched armrest from the factory but it doesn’t look like the part is sold separately. You can see how it’s fitted then spot/sonic welded so you would have to cut or melt and remove if you wanted to customize or repair yours.

 

The 2018 rear door panel is a bit more basic than the front. The armrest is just regular plastic. The door switch surround is also regular plastic, not the gloss black style up front. Gloss black looks nice in pictures but I hope Toyota goes with something else in the near future. On the inside, jute padding is used instead of the more expensive thinsulate. There is no gasket running the perimeter of the door. I looked for some premium OEM style low-density foam and the closest I could find was MD brand weather strip part # 03100 that I purchased at Lowe’s.


I added a section of generic thinsulate material and hot-glued it to the jute padding.

 

Close-up of the gasket