Silicone spray helps a ton for seal freeze but that’s a minor problem compared to the actuator freeze.

rolling down the windows is a primary alternative to get in when door handles aren’t working but that quite often won’t work when the actuator is frozen because so will be the windows.

more than once all windows frozen all door handles frozen and I had to climb in the trunk.

Once inside usually can push the door open with my feet but quite often the problem isn’t the door seal so you still can’t open from the outside.

Resist any and all temptation to pull hard on the door handle. If you do break the ice free without breaking the DHC, you will Lilley get the door stick unlatched and you’ll have to hold the door closed while driving.

Train yourself and any passengers to never pull the door handle hard if it seems stuck down. Open the door from the inside (whatever way you can) and then defrost the door actuator ether by driving (usually 30-40 minutes works) or of course heated garage or a hair dryer into the latch mechanism works to Initially in-freeze (say you already got it stuck open).

It will quickly Re-freeze if you use the hair dryer method. A decent length drive has always cured my two x5s.

Now I have about 3/8 of my doors fixed with the actuator anti-freeze.

The problem with trying to just use low temp grease is the metal surfaces that freeze will work to “self clean” the grease off when ice forms (the bit of ice will act like a windshield wiper and scrape off most of the grease).

My solution is to introduce a non stick non metal (key is waaaay different heat capacity and non friction) surface to coat with grease. The point of the grease is not lubricant, it’s that it repels water to reduce the build up of the ice in the first place.

In testing the force to free the frozen actuator drops easily 100x with my fix: watch the videos where I freeze on purpose before and after the fix.


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2011 E70 • N55 (me)
2012 E70 • N63 (wife)