Can't open doors
 

Hi Everyone,

I have a 2002 X5, it's been sitting in my driveway for about 4 weeks. This morning I went to open it and found the battery completly dead. I went to the local auto parts store and bought a new battery. But, while I can open the drivers door I cannot seem to be able to open any of the other ones (especially the lift gate). Is there a manual release procedure for the X5? I need to get to the battery and really don't want to have to climb over the rear seats.

Thanks...

It's in the manual... It has to do with that black thing on the inside of the cargo door, I believe.

But that means I would have to climb through the interior from the drivers door all the way to the rear... :bawling:

There must be a hidden way to manually unlock all of the doors.. :dunno:

You could smash the rear window and go through there... ;)

See page 38 of the owners manual -

http://www.bmwmotorsports.org/pdf/BM...20-%202002.pdf

Jeff

Yea.. I guess I was hoping that there would be a way to unlock the doors from the drivers area. I guess I'll try crawling through the interior and opening the gate from the inside.

This is really stupid :mad: . Why design a system that has no manual override?? What if I have to open the passengers door? or the rear doors? really really stupid :mad:

Climb in the driver's seat and reach behind to the inside rear door handle and pull twice (once to pop up the unlock button and once more to open the door).

The system was designed for the normal condition where the battery is not in a failed state and can control the functions of the vehicle as designed. There is a fail-safe in the event that the battey has died and, while not convenient, it does function. What's the big deal about climbing over the seats to release the rear trunk mechanism in a manual fashion? :dunno:

Now if the system had failed and there was no means to release the rear hatch, then you would have a legitimate beef. :confused:

Agreed. It is what it is...

Dude just climb over the seats. Or all you have to do is pull the little black switch on the top of the seat and that will make them fold down.

BTW: Why have you not driven your car in 4 weeks?

It's not that climbing the seats is not impossible, it's just stupid to design a system this way.

Here's my situation, I cannot open the rear doors from the inside because I have child locks set to "on". I also have two car seats back there currently installed. On top of this I have tools in the rear cargo area that are bulky and heavy.

So, here is what I have to go through in order to get the damn battery replaced.

Open the drivers door, climb between the drivers and passengers seats and unbuckle the car seats. Remove them and take them out of the car. Then, climb back in and drag the tools all the way from the back to the front. Finally, climb all the way in the back and open the lift gate.

I assure you, this is not a small task but I really appreciate the "what's the big deal responses". Very helpfull (may I suggest a gov't job designing something?). :thumbup:

Oh, the reason the car has been sitting for four weeks is because I have been away on buisness and just came back.

Thanks..

Trust me, things could be worse in your life :rolleyes:

Overall.. in the scheme of things... sure. But it's just frustrating to have to go through all this just to change the battery.

Thank god venting is free. :D

Those crazy Germans....
That's what I say to myself every time I find something wierd/ridiculous/generally odd about the car.

True :thumbup:

The other thing you could have done is to open the hood and put a set of jumper cables on the designated + and - connections. Even if you didn't try to jump start the vehicle, doing so would likely have given you enough juice to use the remote to pop the rear hatch.

Excellent suggestion.

A simple solution should of been for BMW just to provided a lock cylinder for us to use the key at the hatch. I mean...come on...even the 3 series has one. How much is BMW saving by deleting the hatch lock cylinder? :dunno: Not having a lock cylinder in the hatch is stupid...especially when the battery is in the hatch! Must be one of those odd german engineering feature to design a battery operated latch to lock the battery compartment!