External rear door handle removal - my tips learnt the hard way

I thought this was worth sharing  - it's probably been discussed numerous times before but I think it's worthy of mentioning again. (Mine's an Octavia 2 pre facelift estate.)

The outside handle stopped working, the cable had come loose and I could only open the door from inside. To repair you must take the handle off and I struggled to find clear instructions so here goes...

- DON'T take the door card off the inside, there's no need, it doesn't get you anywhere other than a drive full of  broken trim clips.

- You will need a Torx t20 that is long and slim. I tried with a t20 bit in a screwdriver bit holder and couldn't get it to work. I found that a right angled t20 (think of an allen key with a torx end) worked very well.

- Open the door, on the edge of door you will see a small grommet that is covering a hole about 8mm in diameter just below the level of the door handle. Access that hole.

- Insert the Torx key try and slide it parallel and underneath the end of the door handle, the bit of the handle that doesn't move when you open the car door. You looking for a T20 bolt that fixed to the underside of the handle. I wrongly assumed that the bolt was a grub screw - it's not. I assumed that it was threaded in to the actual handle and was aiming too high. It's actually a fixed bolt that doesn't move but as you wind it, the thread drags a tiny vertical fin or blade fore and aft. The movement of this fin allows you to remove the fixed 'thumb' part of the handle. It's not the easiest of tasks to find this screw but a bit of wiggling should find it.

- Unwind (anticlockwise) no more than 12 rotations (I got to 10.5 turns and found that was sufficient to loosen the 'thumb' part)

- The smaller end of the door handle should be able to be prised out. It's cast, it looks pretty brittle, be careful you don't drop it.

- the end of the cable can be seen - it's black, a resin or plastic with serrated grips that fit in to the corresponding channel in the door handle. Flick it out of the way.

- The handle can now be slid towards the open end of the door, pulled away from the door skin and rotated out of the door. 

The repair took 10-15 minutes, and cost nothing, once I solved the riddle.

The mess I created from taking the door panel off will require purchase of new clips and I doubt it'll ever be the same again.