Broke one side of the glove box handle
 

Sigh.

My daughter had too much stuff in the glove box, it wouldn't open easily, so she promptly lifted up hard on the handle and broke one side of it off. Now we're afraid to touch it since we don't want the other side to break and get locked out of the glove box entirely, or have to leave it open constantly before we fix it.

Apparently, the glove box handle is attached to the spring somehow with just two little plastic tabs with a hole in each one. One of those tabs cracked and let go of what it was holding onto.

Can just the handle be replaced? (Don't remotely care about whether it locks or not), or is there some way to fix this handle and reattach it? I read somewhere about cutting up a credit card and gluing it on to reinforce the broken part, but how do you get just the handle itself off and back on? Any ideas? Or do we eat 90 bucks and buy the whole glove box on eBay?

We did the Gorilla Glue fix on the door panels, which worked a treat, but this one I can't see how the handle interacts with the spring, or how to get the other side of it off without breaking it too.

new latch
 

BMW sells just the latch. And if you go earlier years, they didn't have a lock, just a handle. Mine was broke and i wasn't able to get the plastic lock cylinder out, but the new part is <$10.

95-97 had only a latch.

My '97 (2/97) has a lock; my '95 was latch only. I'd just buy a new latch- it's an easy fix.

I'm sorry to really resurrect an old thread here, but I've searched and cant find anything else. I have a 97 318TI and it had the locking latch that broke. I bought just the flap from Bavarian (#51168146466) and they told me it would fit and that I could convert my locking latch to a non locking latch, but I just can't see how this would even go on there. Any help is appreciated.