Rear door closing aid for short folks

We bought a GSW All Track and both my wife and I like it, except for one thing. She's barely 5' tall and can't reach the rear door to close it when it's raised. She's tried a stool, but that's not a very stable solution on any kind of slope or slippery surface. I've looked at the inside of that door to see how some kind of aid for my wife to get ahold of to pull the door down could be attached without wrecking something in or one the door's interior.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for attaching something that will solve my wife's reach problem?

Sounds like a pull strap on the inside of the door would help.

That's what I thought, but didn't want to have to drill holes in the plastic inner door liner.

Does the Alltrack have a handle on the inside or just hand holes? My JSW has a handle that I could attach a strap to but the Golf did not. What about where the plug is to give you inside access to the latch?

maybe you could pop the bottom of the door trim loose and attach the strap there.

I'll have to take another look. The All Track just has the recesses for hand grabs which work fine for me, but not the boss lady who can't reach them and doesn't have the finger strength to hang on if she could.

Even with the grab bar, it's an issue for my daughters on my sloped driveway. They're both about the same height as your wife.

kjclow said:

Even with the grab bar, it's an issue for my daughters on my sloped driveway. They're both about the same height as your wife.

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That's kind of what I was afraid of, and when it's icy I'd hate for her to lose her on a bar and fall. Maybe a couple of straps would be the best idea, something she could grab with both hands completely through the loops. I just looked and think that a piece of strap with loops on each end passing inside of the trunk latch access panel that opens up might work as long as it wasn't yanked on too hard.

Thanks for the replies.

kjclow, I checked again and think a strap through the access panel for the latch will work without modifying anything. I'm thinking of some maybe half inch dowels on the ends of the strap for handles, and if this works I'll post again. Should be a simple and inexpensive fix. I can pull the rear door down with just my index fingers on each side of the panel edge with no deflection of the panel so it seems to be strong enough to take the pull.

My wife was looking on the internet this morning and found a method for closing the rear door on a Golf for the vertically challenged which she tried. It worked for her, but I'm not so sure about how good it is for the rear window's plastic trim. The method is to pull down on the rear window trim, and the door closes. As far up towards the top of the window gives more leverage obviously. It seems to work, but if the rear window trim comes loose she gets to put it back on or pay for it to be done. They said that this was applicable to all Golfs, but since the All Track is 1.4" or so taller than a standard GSW, you'd have to be really short to need it I'd think.