Ok, so I've been having difficulties with my driver side door, i get in Coop, i drive him to a location, turn him off, unlock the doors, pull the door handle... and the door will NOT open 50% of the time. It will not open from the inside or the outside and it's really making me mad because i either have to climb out the window or crawl over and get out the OTHER door. I am very limber and have no problem doing this, but i SHOULDN'T have to. Has anyone had problems like this before? I live 2 hours from the nearest dealership and I've got an oil change coming up in 1000 miles so I'm going to wait until then to take Coop in, does anyone know what the problem is or might be? Maybe there's something i can do to lessen the amount of times this will happen? Any advice is welcome because i look like a dork crawling out the passenger door or climbing out the window and telling people the door is welded shut because he's a sportscar...

 

maybe you could open the window, and use the outside handle?

It may be a loose cable or something in the door. I know it was fairly common with the R53s.

 

Sounds like an inner door cable clip came un-done. This alows slack in the cable and the mechanism will not work. It is an easy fix for the dealer.

 

door handle outside doesn't work either

 

Your Mini is suffering from separation anxiety disorder. I'd get it to the doctor, I mean dealer, quick before it starts waking you up in the middle of the night go for a drive.

 

Ashley - I have that very same problem. If my window is down more than half way the door will not open from inside or out. This is only on the driver's side. Right now it isn't a big issue since it is winter, but I plan on a trip to the dealer to let them work it out. It started after they installed my new door handles so I'm sure that is the cause. I have taken the door panel off, but failed to see anything amiss.

 

Ah I had this very same problem yesterday. When I opened the door from the outside to get in, the handle did not pop back out all the way on the outside of the door. The door shut hard but I didn't much think about it until I tried to get out of her and couldn't! Climbing out the passenger side, I went around to the driver side and tugged on the door handle which still wouldn't open. Upon closer inspection, some ice had gotten stuck in there, once I took the ice out and jiggled the handle, it popped back out and I could continue getting in and out of the car in a normal fashion.

 

I had a very similar situation in another car, and the latch cable was too tight. Door would sometime open, and sometimes would not, and it did not matter if I tried from the inside or outside latch, but the latch did retract properly. I had to loosen the cable by going through the exterior doorhandle removal process. The cable attached directly to the exterior door latch and was adjustable at the attachment point. If the latch does not return properly, this cable may be too loose. I do not know if the MINI is like this or not, but thought I would share the information on what worked on another car.

EDIT: I did have a Bentley manual for the other car and it explained exactly how to do this. I would not recommend messing with it DIY unless you have proper instruction. BTW, most of the handle removal was done through access holes in the door jam (after removing a rubber plug) and had nothing to do with removing door panels. I do not think the MINI works this way. Here is a thread about removing handles, and it is alot of work!!

 

thanks for the advice, i'll get the dealership to take a good look at the all cables and see what's wrong

 

I had that problem, turned out the lock mechanism was frozen and wouldn't let me in our out:P, I brought it into the shop for ten minutes and presto! everything melted and its been fine ever since.