Buy and carry an extra door handle carrier. Those temps will almost guarantee a failure. Oh, I need to bump that posting again as it is getting to winter in the US.

Just be careful with the door handle and you won't break it. It's a design defect that causes the operator to inadvertently self destruct the carrier. If you learn not to yank on the handle when it doesn't properly unlock you'll never break it again.

Lock the door and lightly tug to attempt to open, notice it binds and you can feel things bending and stretching, because the lock is stupidly designed. The lock mechanism rather than disengage the handle that even the new x5s do, instead blocks the handle from lifting.

What happens is the lock lever gets stuck in gummy lubricant when cold and the door handle doesn't actually unlock even when the door lock button is clearly up.

Pay close attention of the handle doesn't move freely! If it doesn't lift it means the carrier is still locked and a strong pull will self destruct. If the handle doesn't lift, open the back door and reach in (or have passenger get in and pull the inside door handle).

If you do break the carrier it can be repaired fairly easy. A couple wraps of 16ga steel wire is all it takes to repair for free if the hinge snapped due to operator error. Very good to bring up this point though as most x5 E63 will have a broken carrier if operated at below freezing temps after a rain where the operator assumes the water froze the door seal.


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Good point on the door carrier. I will be doing a makover of my driver door mechanisme as there is a delay between this one and the others when I lock or unlock. It works fine but slower by a second or two.

Second battery seems to be the way to go to limit risks and run the webasto without worrying. This and the battery booster we'll be carrying and the fact we have multiple cars and battery cable should allow us to not get stranded by electricity.

Go to Syberia...where is -50c' even -70'c and you can not turn off the engine...where closest town is 1000km far away :D if something would happen you would have to start burn tyres....then seats from your car....and then....nothing left...
For syberia in Russia they have made special cars with winter package in doors double windows! Fueltank packed and so on...

you have chosen comfortable trip :D get chains or some special kits for tyres from China if you are going far away to North! Very very warm clothes... get satsleeve for your phone with prepaid card from Thuraya in case you will lost or there will be snow storms and mobile phone coverage will not be working! Take portable car jump startet which is for phone charging as well cigarette lightning...https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...52917cfad9.jpg

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If I were going to siberia, I would not plan on going with the X5, the relative easiness of this version of the trip allows us to do it as family.

Good idea with the satsleeve, I'll look into this.

We are going with snow tires on all cars and chains in case it gets bad. Studded tires are a pain and would require that we each take 2 sets of wheels.

This is good advice, unfortunately when you have a friend or family getting in the car it's not uncommon to see them heave their body weight out and up on the passenger door handles lol. My wife's 3.0i passenger side handle just failed last week because of it. I replaced the driver side two years ago, still holding up strong thankfully.

OP can review my door handle DIY, definitely possible failure point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge7-HJ0DUz0

I'd also suggest having a spare battery if possible with those temps.

Thank for your input and thanks for your video, I had already watched it when I first wanted to look into my slow driver side door lock. Very well made.

I'm thinking to be safe I might buy a pair of door carriers and take them with me and have a stern talk with passengers.

I'll be adding a backup battery and some kind of load balancer.

X5 to the arctic circle
 

You can repair a broken carrier with a wrap of steel wire. Literally better than new since it's no longer brittle.

You could premeptive strike and reinforce before it breaks. I'm going to be replacing one in a day or two I will show how to fix but also I'm hoping to determine a clean and lube method that can be done without opening the door.


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I am (as you might have guessed), very very interested in this reinforcement as well as the clean and lube. If I can reinforce them before leaving (and possibly ASAP so I avoid any issue ever), it would be a great progress compared to wondering when it will happen.


On a side note, I've been looking at the weather daily in various cities we may go to or pass and some of them got to -20 last night but temps seem to be around -7 a night for most of the time and I'll get this here in geneva so not as cold as I thought

X5 to the arctic circle
 

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...38bd580edd.jpg
Winding some 16ga wire around the broken hinge.

Blue arrow: broken hinge
Red arrow: the cause of the grief. I'm planning on swapping a handle carrier soon and develop an in-place clean and lube fix to avoid the problem.




https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...ea8e5e1bda.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...96d837def4.jpg

After repair: it's probably 10-20x as strong as factory, something else will break before this repair will break.