My '89 535i has a severe case of "driver's door won't latch" syndrome where sometimes it properly latches and mostly it doesn't, especially if the weather is ~40 degrees F, but now also in warm weather.

I've followed Shogun and others' advice and removed/cleaned/lubed the latch from the car, and tried multiple times to adjust the door striker, and also aligned the door in its sill to match the body and rear door. Nothing seems to work.

Question: Aside from REALOEM (which sometimes has errors) information, does anyone know definitely that latches/strikers from a '90 car will plug and play in an '89? The bolt hole patterns in the cars' sheet metal appears the same, as does the basic shape. The '89 striker is mostly silver metal with a basically rectangular striking surface with a black plastic cover, whereas the '90 striker is U-shaped and cylindrical striking surface. The mouth of each latch mechanism differs, to mate properly with its respective striker. I assume each respective latch only works with its striker, but can a matched pair plug and play from a '90 car into an '89?