The door on the driver side locks up completely in cold weather or in when there is a lot of rain close to the freezing point. When ther is below -5degrees C it locks for sure. The dealer has replaced most of the locking mechanics without improving matters. They have no idea what causes this problem. Anyone with similar problems (and a possibel solution) ? The car is a cooper 04.
PM
This is not good, as it does not bode well for the rest of us. I'm scheduled for service on Monday, and my dealer said he may or may not wash the car, depending on outdoor temperature, because of door mechanism freeze-ups that have been happening.
My wife had a 97 Passat (i.e., not the current version), which had terrible problems with door handles freezing up. The dealer didn't seem to realize this was an endemic problem, and did a lot of screwing around with it (at considerable cost to us and with no positive results). It turns out that VW had found that lubricating the mechanism with automatic transmission fluid reduced the problem to a maintenance item. Mini has much better communication than VW ever did, so an inability to resolve the issue may signal a real problem.
Odd thing is that it only happens on the driver side, never on the passengers side. This was also the case wih another car according to the dealer. So does the locks on each side differ?
pm
I have exactly the same problem on my October '02 Cooper. Driver's side (right-hand door) only but only when it's really cold. The first time it happened I had to call out the BMW roadside recovery service (which took two hours to arrive, and fixed the car in about two minutes). On subsequent occurrences, I have fixed it myself by liberal use of de-icer and by repeatedly pulling on the internal door opener on the door.
There's been a frost here (mid-west of England) today so I might go and have a look. The car's got to go in tomorrow as the dealer broke it, so if the door is causing problems still, I might get them to fix that as well...
I live Norway so the term "really cold" may have a differnet content. On a second thought the lock on right and lefthand door differs since the key opening is on the drivers side. Consequently the frost have a shorter path on the drivers side.This might be a clue to the actual cause of the problem. pm
my locks have been fine but I find my Windows freeze up - when I open and close the doors the windows don't move the tiny fraction that they usually do and then catch on the sills :(
My passenger door won't unlock on some cold days using the key remote. I can get it to open if I push in on the door a bit. (04).
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