I pulled up to the bagel shop yesterday and much to my surprise both the drivers and passengers door where frozen from the inside and outside! I had to got through the drive through then crawled out of the tailgate door when I got to work. Fortunately it warmed up enough through the day for the drivers door to thaw. I know it has been unseasonably cold (below 0 degrees F) but this is a safety issue. Even my old piece of crap Escort never had this problem. I have seen several threads regarding this problem - some of the solutions are fine if you have a covered area to park. Shouldn't be an issue if they cold weather tested correctly.

 

O degrees F here today. (Weatherman says it may get up
to 6, but I know he's a big liar.) And I've never had this
problem. StillK, did you recently run your car through a car
wash? I've not followed this problem.

God speed.

 

Get used to it.

MINI isn't going to bring the doors into this century.

 

Cooper Beagle
Sorry - haven't been near a car wash in the last month - its another design flaw - follow the lead from the post MCS 22004 and you will see what a common problem it is.

 

Make sure the doors are clean and dry where they make contact with the rubber seal. Apply Glycerine with a cotton ball to all the rubber gaskets that come into contact with the door jam. They will not freeze shut. You can buy glycerine in a drug store and is usually around .69 a bottle. One bottle will last a lifetime. As far as the door locks go, you can either use WD 40 or Graphite and squirt into the locks as well where the latch assembly is located. Hope this helps!

 

Perhaps a outside car cover would be of help. Was your car completely dry or did it sleet or snow on your car? Ice can be a real problem with most any car door. My car had to set outside for three nights with temps of minus 5 degrees below but I had no problen with the doors. Cold seats was a different story. :smile:

 

HERE is the ANSWER... the outer door handles are the culprit. What happened to you is that the sun or warming temps thawed out the door handles while you were working. No amount of heat on the inside of the car will get your doors open. When you press the outer door handle button, the button will go in ok and spring back, however there is something else in that handle that is sticking. If you are trapped you will need to open your window and warm up the outside handle,use your hand, and in about 60 seconds or less the door will open! Try it.

 

Car covers, cotton *****/glycerine, reaching outside the door to warm up the handle, a garage (my personal solution), or crawling out the hatch are all solutions...but the fact remains that you need to employ these solutions in response to some pretty lame engineering and manufacturing quality on the MINI's doors.

My guess is that in 15 years, those few first-generation BMW-MINIs that are still on the road will be "fondly" remembered by a handful of enthusiasts/collectors for just these sorts of wacky problems. Of course, those of us who aren't car-collecting eccentrics will have moved on to vehicles that don't entomb us in the winter.

Oh, and StillK, take heart in the fact that I'll bet you LOOKED a whole lot better crawling out of your MINI's boot than you would have doing the same in your old Escort. And isn't that the whole point anyway?

 

My wife has a Honda with doors that are routinely frozen shut in the extreme cold. She hasn't been to a car wash. I have a Jeep that it's never happened to. Itcan hapapen to any car in this kind of weather.

 

I’m with MINI USA. I’m sorry to read about your problem with your frozen doors. If you want our assistance, please phone us at (866) ASK MINI and mention Reference # 200403402055 so that we can help you more efficiently.

 

Random posting from Minidivision. I assume that this is a randomly genreated post. Like every 350th post Minidivision picks a thread and posts the standard boiler plate memo. Is there anybody out there?

 

^ I KNOW they're trying to be helpful...I really do. :evil: Some constructive suggestions? How about:

1) Honest discussion of BMW's current assessment of this problem (e.g., "We know it's a problem and this is what we're doing"; or "Look you crybabies, no one else's car has this problem so suck it up"...or ANYTHING definitive)

2) Asking any number of clarifing questions that might indicate that they'd actually read and understood the postings

3) The name of a real person to call versus an 800# with no name

4) Posting BACK to threads to inform us (from their perspective) as to what's been the result of "asking for help"

Oh, and I could probably come up with more suggestions if I took the time to actually figure out how to train these folks...

 

>>I’m with MINI USA. I’m sorry to read about your problem with your frozen doors. If you want our assistance, please phone us at (866) ASK MINI and mention Reference # 200403402055 so that we can help you more efficiently.


Wow, the script grepped the string "frozen doors" out of the thread and embedded it in the autoreply. It feels so much more personal now.