2 degrees and drivers door won't open
 

Of course !
Setting record lows in NJ, and my drivers side door won't open from outside on my 06 X5. Opens from inside ok (after climbing over the center console from the pass side)

Anything easy I can try which would not require dissembling the door panel in the frosty windy outdoors...?

Thanks! Think Spring!!

ed

Wait until the thaw and spray some wd40 or antifreeze on the handle. Don't try forcing it or you're gonna end up replacing the handle or the carrier.

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...sy-remedy.html

There is a thread on this topic a few inches down......

happened to me as well starting this winter. black friday it happened while out shopping drove home holding the door grab a screwdriver and wd 40 finally got it to relatch . now this mornign i could only get in thru passenger rear had to put our 4 month old in climb over her and the seat to start the car then again at daycare it finally worked after two hours of truck warming up:rofl:

hoping for a better day tomorrow or im moving south

Despite my wife's protest that I would be a frozen Ed-cicle, I just went outside and tried this, but no luck. Maybe because it still freezing outside and my garage is not heated. I HOPE the carrier isn't broken. I've been through a rough December which included replacing the PS outside mirror twice, and a rear PDC sensor that turned out to be a bad/corroded connector for which getting the part took weeks, and a few other surprises....

Thanks for the link Stephen !

ed

your carrier could be freezon up ,mine started back in oct on passenger side I would lift handle up but it wouldn`t go back down flusg where its suppose to be ,so when the weather got back to the + side and thawed out, I lifted the door handle up and sprayed some teflon on the carrier and its been find since and its gotton down to -40c with no probs.

I thought I better close this up with the final answer...

Yes, it was the carrier. In the Northeast this week, the temps were below freezing pretty much all week, and I was tired of climbing over the console. So it ended up costing me $338 to have the carrier replaced by an local Indy (German Car Shoppe in Edison NJ). 2 hours of labor was $196 + $120 for the OEM part + tax.

I've done window regulators on my E46 and this looked about the same, but candidly it was just to darn cold out to start playing BMW mechanic in January.

Thanks for the feedback, and the tips..

ed

Anyone have experience with aftermarket carriers like Febi, Uro or MTC?

While I generally like to stay with factory OEM parts, when the OEM part has such a high failure rate, it makes me a little less reluctant to try a replacement part.

The tolerances of the aftermarket parts are not as tight and will potentially still cause you issues opening the door.

And please for the love of god don't install Uro or MTc parts at all on your X. Cheap Chinese junk. I bought a Uro PS reservoir and threw it out, it was a third the price of oem and I could tell why. Plastic was thin as hell and cheaply made.

Mine ended up breaking over this cold freeze as well. Ended up giving one of those $50 dollar ebay ones a shot. It works great, but not without a little modification. The door handle part would not for the life of it twist back into the carrier.. needed to dremel a bit of that part to get it too go back in properly.