Frozen door latches

[Black-Forest]

I can tell you the e70 is not immune from this. Both our e53 and e70 were frozen at the same time last week. Lots of fun defrosting.

[andrewwynn]

There is a fix to the problem. If you ever have your door open for any reason remove the actuator and add a piece of nylon or better: Teflon and a tiny bit of grease it will never happen again.

The fix will also eliminate the infamous broken door handle carrier.

Also: be very aware of when it’s frozen: if the handle won’t lift don’t EVER force it. Gain entry another way such as roll down the window and pull the inside latch (it uses a different bar unaffected by cold and wet).

If you pull the outer handle and it’s “sorta frozen” it will stick in the unlatched position and the door will not stay closed.

Hot air from heat gun or hair dryer inside the latch mechanism will defrost it so it will latch but it will quickly refreeze so you need to warm the car either heated garage or a nice long drive will work.

[andrewwynn]

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B14GsCn7Ga0oFm

The photo library including many videos showing exactly how the actuator works and exactly how it freezes and exactly how to fix it so it will never freeze again.