I'll preface this by saying that my locks appear to be working fine on my 04 MCS and have not failed yet.

Last night after trying to open my driver's side door from the inside, I noticed that the handle felt stuck. I pulled firmly but as gently as possible to get the door to open. The temp was 29. This morning it was 10 degrees, after opening my door to get in to start the car, the door would not shut. The latch was stuck in the wrong position. I got that straightened out, got into the car and tried opening the door. Again the interior handle felt tight, as it had the night before, and wouldn't return to the rest position, but the door would open. I drove to a gas station because I was out of gas, and tried to open the driver's side door. The handle was tight but would move all the way out, yet the door would not unlatch. I put down the window and tried reaching out to open it with the handle. No luck. So I drove back home and tried to open the door a few times using both the inside and outside handles. I also tried to push the door open. I climbed out the passenger side, walked around and pulled the driver's door handle without depressing the release on the inside of the handle. The door pulled right open.

On my previous cars, I've never had trouble until the temp was much lower than 10 degrees. Has anyone else had this kind of trouble?

 

Try a little lock-ease in the keyhole and on the latch hardware. This seems to work with all of my cars & trucks in the past. Perhaps you got to much moisture inside the door.
hope it works for ya, B.D.

 

Others have faced this too in previous winters ...
One problem I have noticed is that water collects on the depressible bit of the outside door handle, freezes, and prevents the handle being pressed.

 

I've had this problem several times. It appears that the design of the door handle allows for water to creep in and freeze. Usually this just makes getting into the car very difficult after a snow or freezing rain but recently I had the electronics go a little crazy. In my case I was finally able to get into the car only after pouring warm water over the door handles and down through the gap in the body panels (like it was raining). I was able to get into the car but when I did I heard the door locks cycling (on their own) every 10 seconds or so. They were attempting to lock the car..flashing turn signals and all like I had depressed the lock button on the key (this is only when the car wasn't running). When I drove to the post office and turned the car off I sat in the car about 30 seconds or so and the doors automatically locked (and kept cycling). When I tried to open the door (usually a double pull unlocks the drivers side) it would not open...no matter how many times I pulled. In order to get the door open I had to turn the ignition back on and then remove it...and quickly open the door. The problem continued until I took it into the dealership and they "reset" the system.

Given that I live where we get snow (Colorado) my first recommendation for design change would be to improve the ability of the door handles to prevent freezing. They look great but leave something to be desired when you are staring at them in 10 degree weather because you can't get in the car.

Mark

 

A lock lubricant is what I used to help unstick the latch.

Also, there was no issue with the outside handle depressible not working or it being clogged with ice. I'm sure that will happen later. The handle would depress, but the door would not unlatch.

Given that I make it a point of trying not to get moisture into the doors, whatever moisture has gotten in there is strictly the result of weather. This points to another ridiculous design flaw.

A fellow owner who is on his second car MCS told me that the 04 door parts appear different than the 03s, including the door positioning bar between the hinges, which now does not hold the door open on even the slightest grade.

 

Identical problem to MCS22004. This morn I was able to get in the car (19 degrees here in CT) When I got to work, the door handle was frozen. I was able to get the door open, but then I could not close it. I sat in the lot for about 15 min with the car running and the heat blasting. I was about to give up and drive home when I gave it one last try. Finally the door shut.
On a side note, we had a brief but heavy snowstorm and then quickly got very cold. Last night, all the roads were iced over. Don't know what to make of this one yet. If it happens again, I will have to look into it more, otherwise I will chalk it up to the strange weather.

 

Same thing happened to me the other night. Outside door handle worked fine... I got in. But then, when I got home and tried getting out, my inside handle wouldn't move. I pulled and pulled and finally did... but then it wouldn't go back to it's original position.

Because I work at a dealership, I went right to service the next day. He lubed it for me. It still doesn't feel "right" but it hasn't stuck like it did that first night. The temp has been hovering around 10 degrees with windchills below 0... I'll have to see if it happens again.

 

did you wash your car recently?

yah, try some de-icing lube or even WD40.

i would consider taking apart the door and adding some
silicone grease on the arm guides inside the door too.

 

Man, I am getting tired of typing this but...I got that too
Service appointment for Tuesday and watch it will be warm and the drivers inside door latch will work fine. :smile:

 

It's kind of like a game: will my MINI let me in today????? Oh please!??!!!

This happens to me all the time--well, I suppose I should say "regularly"--when the temps get low. Thankfully, it seems that only one door freezes shut at once, so I can always get in--no matter how inconvenient.

 

on my other car several years ago when we had an ice storm,
i had to go into my car through the trunk.

 

This is a prime example of a wunderkind BMW engineer--let's call him Hans Gruber--skipping Automotive Design 101 to work on something flashy like the M project, and then getting "refocused" to the MINI during the twilight of his career upon being replaced by a cheaper college grad who'll work 18hrs a day.

Given that companies have been making door handles that work well for, say, forty years, you'd think that BMW could manage to not screw this up. The level of stupidity it takes to botch something so simple that has already been proven to work well is unfathomable. Morons.

 

I'll add to the chorus (and maybe this will draw notice from the MINIUSA robot)... Yes, this happens to me all of the time in the winter when I must unfortunately leave the car outside.

Even more troublesome is when the locks freeze while driving in cold weather!!! I've been frozen INTO my car on several occasions and have been very afraid of busting off the door release handle inside the car.

 

OT- bobdawg, that's a MASSIVE signature indeed!

 

OT, too sorry, Yeah Big Sig = Rude.

 

This morning, despite the -5 degree temperature, the driver's side door opened fine from the outside and could be opened from the inside when I got into the car to start it for its warmup. The inside door handle still wouldn't sit flat, but it did work. It's been pushed out for over two days now.

I drove to work and both the inside and outside door handles ceased to be functional at all. They both lacked the normal tension that you feel as you actuate them that indicates that they are moving the door latch. It feels like they have been disconnected. I figure something is wrong if I commit to over $20K for a car and three months later the door won't open, making it necessary to climb out the passenger's side (until it breaks, too). Funny, I never had trouble with the door handles on my <$8K Hyundai no matter how cold it got.

I'll make the bold move of suggesting that MINI fix the problem, but I expect the dealer will just replace whatever is broken with the same defective parts so I can go through this again in a few weeks.

 

^ Be thankful that you have a 2004, and therefore have the inside (under the rear seat) emergency boot hatch release cable. This is missing from 2002 cars (like mine) and therefore when both of my doors freeze, and if my battery should conk out at that moment (it could happen...) I'd be sealed into my car like a sardine in a can.

You, my friend, can simply pop the boot and crawl out like a clown in the circus. This car has German (cold) and British (wet) heritage...you'd think that they'd have put the two together at some point during testing and figured this one out.

If I were you though, I'd go to the dealer and demand that they take apart your doors and R/R the locking and latching mechanisms. Winter's only 1/2 over...



_________________

Bring Out the Scoops!

 

No doubt I will take it to the dealer. I'm not going to trash my weekend, so I'll probably do it next week. I share your opinion exactly--why would a European car not have doors that can operate in cold and wet weather? Why does moisture even get into the doors in the first place? I don't think there is anything for them to figure out. They could just borrow a design from one of the hundreds of cars that do not have this problem. The engineering has already been done. Why reinvent the wheel?

I wonder where that MINI robot is.

 

Actually, at this very moment I'm on travel and sitting in a hotel in NJ about 10 miles from MINIUSA HQ. It's about 20 degrees outside. Therefore, my guess is that the MINIUSA drone is frozen into his/her car and can't get online to read this stuff.

Expect a response in, say, April?

 

If MINI had planned it better, those of us who had these problems would all have been frozen into our cars and died before we could post complaints. By escaping, we thwarted their plan.

I was under the impression that MINIbot wasn't a real person but rather a PERL script. It seems to have about 10 canned block quotes to dump into msg boards.

 

Last night the outside handle would depress but would not release the latch. The inside handle decided to sit flat, but could be pulled all the way to the open position without any resistance, not actuating the latch either. So, today after letting the car run with the heater on high for two hours, the outside handle began to function again, but the inside handle still would not work the latch. I took the door apart and found that the cable was cleanly snapped a few mm from where it connects to the handle. Here are the pics:





Distance shot for reference

 

Anyone have the part # for the left side door handle cable?

 

I suspect this will happen to some other cars.

 

i had that problem a while back with it sticking, it never broke tho. it was a cold day and i went through the car wash the day before so i guess it had water in it that froze. never happened since but now the handle is a milimeter or so too slack as if the cable streched when i pulled it or something

 

Yours has probably frayed, giving it slack. Be prepared for it to break.