I was out this evening and had an unusal thing happen... My passenger couldn't open their door... The door wouldn't respond at all.. The lock on the passenger door would sometimes go up and sometimes wouldn't... I tried to open the door from the outside while the lock was in the up position but it wouldn't respond... the door release would move but nothing would happen... They finially had to climb out the drivers side... Not an easy task... About 5 mins later the door worked fine... and is still operational... Has anyone else had this "weird" thing happen... I'd hate to think what would have happend if this had been an emergency situation...

Thanks, Paul

 

This one is new to me...
never read of this either.
One time the doors locked as I started to drive away..I don't
have it programmed to do that..and it has never happened
again. Strange little cars.....

 

My dad had the same problem with his 996 porsche the service department had no idea what had happened but finally concluded that the battery must have stopped working or something like that. That in turn causes the locking mechanism to seize up.

 

The strangest thing is that the actual door handle releases wouldn't open the door even when the lock appeared to be in the unlock position (up position)... Are the door "handles" electronic? I thought they were mechanical... Can we become "locked" inside our cars??? This seems kinda dangerous... Much the same as the "boot release" issue...

Thanks, Paul

 

I'm wondering about this too..
In my post about my missing boot latch cable ordeal (you know the one) I was able to get out of the car because my door was unlocked to begin with when the battery cable came loose.
However it seems as though if my doors had been locked (and they usually are), I would have been trapped in my vehicle indefinitely in the middle of the desert, and this really frightens the crap out of me.
Just imagine if someone ends up driving into a river, reservoir, swamp or any other body of water (and these things happen, you know) obviously the electrical system would immediately short out and they would have no way to escape. They would DIE.
Any BMW people out there listening?
Seriously, this could get ugly....

 

>>I was out this evening and had an unusal thing happen... My passenger couldn't open their door... The door wouldn't respond at all.. The lock on the passenger door would sometimes go up and sometimes wouldn't... I tried to open the door from the outside while the lock was in the up position but it wouldn't respond... the door release would move but nothing would happen... They finially had to climb out the drivers side... Not an easy task... About 5 mins later the door worked fine... and is still operational... Has anyone else had this "weird" thing happen... I'd hate to think what would have happend if this had been an emergency situation...
>>
>>Thanks, Paul

When did you get your car? Cooper or S?

Thanks,
retroom

 

>> Just imagine if someone ends up driving into a river, reservoir, swamp or any other body of water (and these things happen, you know) obviously the electrical system would immediately short out and they would have no way to escape. They would DIE.


YIKES!

I am sure this has been considered (we hope!!). I wonder what fail safes there are installed in the MINI for this consideration. I don't know about the 2002, but in the '03 models, if you lock the doors using the remote, and you are still inside, the unlock button in the MINI will not work. However, you only need to pull the door handle twice and it pops open the lock, and you are FREE!!! Now, I can't imagine this being any different in the '02 models. So after thinking of this, I now know that the door latches are mechanical, at least from the inside. It feels mechanical from the outside as well. The boot is definatly electronic, so if you are ever trapped in a MINI while going to meet the swamp monster, don't escape from the boot. Just remember, drop, unlatch, and pull twice!

 

>>(quote)
However, you only need to pull the door handle twice and it pops open the lock, and you are FREE!!! Now, I can't imagine this being any different in the '02 models. So after thinking of this, I now know that the door latches are mechanical, at least from the inside.

I'm thinking we should do an experiment: Lock the doors, disconnect the battery and try the "pulling twice" thing just to make sure...Better to find out in your garage than when your MINI stalls on the railroad tracks!
I'm currently vacationing without my car so I can't do it right now, but if anyone's got some free time on their hands...

(I'm thinking that if the door locks really were mechanical, there wouldn't be a problem opening the doors after locking with the key remote, but of course we all know there is....)
Creepy....
_________________
2003 Dark Silver MCS, White top, Lapis Blue leather, Premium and Sport.

 

As for pulling the door latch "twice" we pulled it Many Many times without any response... The door simply would NOT open even with the door latch/handle being pulled from the inside or outside... even when the lock button on the top of the door was in the unlock position... I aggree with Calvin77... This is scary... My Mom is in a wheelchair and IF she had been the passenger SHE NEVER would have been able to climb out the driver side... and I do take her out in my car... I'm driving out to the dealer today to have this checked out... BUT they prob. will have no idea as to what happened... I'll keep you posted...

Thanks... Paul
P.S. I have an 2003 MC build date of 9/02...

_________________
Paul830

 

Hi Paul,

Maybe you had some ice on the window, this is what happened to me.

This morning I had an experence with the driver's side door. We had an ice storm last night and it took about a minute to get the door handle thawed. I gave a pretty hard pull to open the door and noticed a nasty sound while it opened. You know how the door window goes down a little bit before you open the door ? Well this time it didn't. Now I couldn't get the door shut because the window would hit the frame below the roof. I went back into the house and got some warm tap water and poured it on the window and door. OK, nothing happened. Great ! Now I'm thinking I just wrecked the window ! I took the door and slowly swung it closed about five times, stopping when the window would just touch the window frame, when all of a sudden the window jumped down like it should. Victory ! It was a pretty hairy morning, my nerves are still on edge, but at least nothing is broken. Next time there is ice on the windows, the water bottle will come out first.

I just love this car !

Warm thoughts and holiday wishes to everyone,

Marty

 

>>Hi Paul,
>>
>>Maybe you had some ice on the window, this is what happened to me.
>>


I've had similar ice issues not only on this car, but on all cars I've owned with frameless doors. The auto-up-down feature sure does add a new twist to the scenario as you pointed out! Not that I advocate frequent brute force, but you would be surprised how durable that glass can be - especially when no warm water is to be had

 

Called the dealer/service dept. today.... they seem to think it was ice build up inside the door... I guess they had about 10 calls from customers today with door problems... (BMW and MINI's)... He suggests that I "keep an eye on it" to see if it happens again...

I guess we can also purchase a 12V hairdryer and keep it in the glove box for emergencies.... LOL... or Move to a warmer state...

Paul...
:smile:

 

Just a word of caution when using warm water on glass in these cold winter months. I use to do this a lot when I was in high school, so I wouldn't have to scrape the windows of ice. One day when I was doing this, ccccCCRACK! The window busted right down the middle. Who knows how this happened, but it did and I had to get the window replaced. I would never pour warm water on my MINI in these temps. Think of the heart break you would feel when something breaks or freezes up and you can't do anything with it.

 

>>I guess we can also purchase a 12V hairdryer and keep it in the glove box for emergencies.... LOL... or Move to a warmer state...


Paul, you can always come join the fun in the sun in the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix)

 

I keep a can of De-icer spray in the house in the event I need to de-ice the windows, I hate scraping, also that is what is recommended in the owners manual for de-icing the headlights which you aren't supposed to use a scraper on anyway.

 

Reactivating an old thread...this just happened to me for the first time today. For the most part, my MINI gets to stay in the garage at night, and has missed getting snowed/iced on in outdoor parking lots during the day. Thus, I hadn't had too much problem with icy buildup on the car (just a lot of road salt and crud, but that's another story).

Well, yesterday, the car ended up getting snowed on during the day, and had to spend the night outdoors. Getting into the car this morning was uneventful; but when I got to my destination (about 15 minutes away), I found that the driver's door would not open from the inside. The handle pulled, but nothing happened. I pulled about 5 times, and eventually, the door opened. Then, when I went to get in again (about an hour later) the same thing happened...this time I couldn't get in from the outside. Fortunately, I could get in from the passenger side. I pulled the handle about 1/2 dozen times to no avail.

THEN, I got the bright idea to turn on the ignition and roll down the window. The window went down easily as always, and then lo and behold my interior door handle opened the door easily.

I'd chalk this up to the frameless window simply being frozen onto the rubber...but that doesn't explain why the handles/latches (inside and out) are stiff and refuse to budge when the window's frozen. Rather, it seems like there's a linkage between the glass moving (an electronic function) and the latches functioning. It's sort of creepy (i.e., maybe you could get locked in your car if there was a power failure)...but the good news is that if you do have power, it seems that dropping the window with the window switch may free up your door.

I'm not sure what to do about this other than to avoid parking outside in the wet when temperatures are below freezing.

 

Paul,
My MC has also suffered from a frozen passenger door handle at least once - there was ice on the outside over the handle, so I could not be sure if it was that jamming the lock, or frozen moisture inside the door frame.
Either way, it defrosted after 10 minutes of driving.

I have not seen inside the doors to know what ice vulnerabilities there are - maybe some moisture repellent in the doors would be beneficial.

 

This happened to me today. Ice storm last night. The driver side handle was iced over, so I opened the passenger door, and then the drivers side from the inside.

BUT then...I drove, got out. As I went to get back in, the passenger side now was non-responsive. It had just worked 10 minutes earlier. I cracked the ice on the drivers side and I'm in. 10 Hours later, and after lots and lots of driving, my passenger door remains stuck :???:

 

2003 MC w/ failed drivers door A series of actions bring me to where I am now...

1. Routinely happens - The doors routinely freeze shut. It happened in my last Cooper and happen in this one too. After extensive pulling the doors always open. This is NOT the problem.

2. A week ago-ish - Got in the car, drove it on a short trip, went into a store. Came back out and "unlocked" the door. The door itself unlocked, but the drivers side "door lock thingy" (as I like to call it)... the lock pin... didn't pop up. The door was still functional, but the pin wasnt. Its always in the down position. Door has been functioning fine for a week, but the pin won't pop up.

3. Today - Car was sitting for a day or so. Had a HUGE thaw, then freezing rain/snow. Try to get into the car and both doors are frozen shut (as usual ) Eventually get in both doors and drive off.

- get to destination and drivers door WONT OPEN Passenger gets out fine. Pull, pull, pull, pull.. finally opens.
- Go inside, come out... door won't open from outside AT ALL. Pull multiple times from outside, have passenger pull latch and push from inside... NOTHING
- Get to climb into drivers seat from passenger seat....awwwesome
- Get back to house and drivers door STILL won't open. Climb out passenger door in a big bundle of shame...

I firmly believe its not the freezing, but rather a failed locking mechanism. This means a trip to the dealer... Any thoughts??

 

Up here in the great white north,the doors are an issue in the winter.
There are some problems with the cables in the doors icing up.But the main problem is snow/ice getting trapped in the outside door handles.The snow/ice prevent the lever from returning all the way,and the doors latching works can not cycle to let the door open again,from inside or out.The thing to do is hold the outside lever open and use a snow brush to clean out snow,or if that does not work,pick it out with a small pointy thing.Or soak it with deicer.
I had to crawl out the hatch at the dealer last winter when I took the car in to get this fixed.At that time the fix was relube the cables in the doors and put stronger return springs in the levers.But my tech at the dealer was the one to figure out the snow/ice problem and MINI CA said he was nuts.
Well now MINI has decided he is right,and putting 05 outside handles on any cars with the problem.The 05 levers work different,get mine next week.But I will still brush the snow out of them everytime it snows.And if it still is an issue,after I let some snow build up in there,I'm going to put some clear tubing over the handle and it should work like a boot to keep the snow out.
If your windows don't dip when you open the door,scrape,thaw the snow/ice at the bottom of the window,roll it down,then up again,and hold the toggle up for at least 5 seconds to reset and you should be good to go.