Celica Forums General Discussion Exterior Replacing the door handle on my 2000 Celica

I bought a 2000 Toyota Celica several months ago. It is in pretty good shape for a 20 year old car. However the plastic door handle broke the other day, and it is very difficult to get the door open from the driver's side. I've been looking online for a replacement, and I was wondering if anyone has tried a Toyota corolla door handle from that same time if they are interchangeable.
I can't find any replacement door handles for the Celica other than parts.toyota.com, and they are a bit expensive. I found a Toytota Corrola door handle on amazon for much cheaper, and I was wondering if that could be used instead. From the picture, they look the same. I am just wondering if the internal hardware is different enough that it won't work. Or perhaps I can just replace the plastic piece that broke instead of the entire door handle. Any advice is appreciated. I attached a picture of the broken handle.

Did the Corolla handle work? looking to replace the handle myself.

I tested it at a junkyard and it doesn't fit. Very slightly different design.

anywhere i can find a 2003 celica replacement cheap 130 dollars from toyota parts departmen is insane.

I have found that if you buy a cheap corolla handle and disassemble the handle the actual handle can be placed into the celica handle housing if you use a dremel to remove a small amount of material.

Total cost was 8 dollars and some time

Do you have any more picture of how you modified the handle?

I will get a photo of the passenger one tomorrow and draw where I cut on it if that helps. I removed the retaining pin and spring to let the handle drop out of the cheap corolla handle assembly then I ground down the original celica handle pin and released the spring to remove the handle and weight. Then cut the back of the celica handle assembly because the Corolla handle is narrower by a bit more than 1/8 of an inch then re assembled it using the Corolla parts(spring weight handle) and celica pin Photo key: blue weight, red pin, green handle pivot arms, red pin, white is a similar area to where I cut on the celica housing to make it fit using Corolla handle photo I took

Below are the photos to try to help without removing my handle. Highlighted in yellow is the location cut (back of handle is passenger door handle. It is the side further from the key that should be cut. Reversed image provided to mimic drivers side