Exterior door handle

Hi Guys, I am in the middle of replacing the drivers side exterior door handle. I pulled the old one off no problem. However, the one I pulled off does not have any wires connected to it and the replacement door handle has a electronic twib with a grey and black wire attached. Does the 1991 door handle have these wires (but the guy that had it before me replaced it with an aftermarket door handle) or does the 1991 not have the electronic twib with wires attached to it? There is a connector that I had to unhook that has a grey and black wire attached when I took the door panel off, is that in any way related to the door handle? The wires seem to run back to the main wiring cluster and go towards the front of the car. Confused??

These extra electrical connections were not used on 91 models, and the handle assemblies factory installed did not have these at all on the 1991 cars. 88-90 did use these, and had different handle assemblies from 91 models. The extra switch and wiring is primarily used in triggering the light show on 88/89 models (or odometer readout on entry in 1990) and the 91 models did not have these features.

That said, you should be able to use the older type handles as the mounting is identical and just leave the extra harness unconnected.

KDirk

Does that mean that the 91's interior lights do not come one when you lift the handle as well as the keyhole light? Edited April 1, 2015 by my3buicks (see edit history)

Great and thanks! The job is pretty simple if you do it from the top buy removing the weather striping. All and all, no cuts bruises or even cussing. On my car the interior lights come on when you open the door, when you sit down and close the door the interior dash and console lights come on even before you turn the key. Very cool! I do not have any key hole lights on my car however. It seems when I first bought the car they came on, I am sure others can shed light on the key hole light.

91's have no keyhole (halo) lights on the exterior lock cylinders. 90 was the last year for that feature. The courtesy lights illuminate on the door opening via the normally closed switch on the forward edge (hinge end) of the door opening, not on lifting the exterior handle.

This was probably done as remote keyless entry made these features superfluous and they were finally dropped during the 1991 model year redesign, the first major revision in the E platform electronics since RKE was added in 89.

Olds and Cadillac also dropped the halo lock lights and interior lights activiating on lifting (or pushing the button on, depding on model) the exterior handle across the board in 91. I imagine this was largely as cost reduction move, since the feature had been made redundant by RKE coming on most uplevel BOC cars from 89, at least as an option. Funny that it was standard on the Reatta, and most Cadillac models offered it as an option until 93 or 94.

KDirk

Thanks, interesting tidbit