2004 Cayenne - frozen door lock

[A911DOM]

Made the mistake of cleaning the car yesterday just before a very sharp front.

Got to the car this morning and couldnt get the door catch to 'catch'

It finally succumbed and allowed me to depart for work - On arrival at work I couldnt get out of the bloody door.

Anyone got any handy hints to help free off a sticky door release (door is now shut and been sat in the sun but still not releasing). Dont want to be climbing over to the passenger door every outing if I can help it!

Thanks in advance

[Martian O]

Doesn't sound like a frozen catch to me. I've washed my car many times before frosts/snow etc and never experienced it. Maybe just a coincidence to the catch failing?

[A911DOM]

Could be, but its done it twice and only after having been washed and then frozen soon after.

I'll see how it goes today and (if I can get the bloody door open) get a shedload of wd40 in there...

The worst part of this sorry tale is that I had a quite visible 'toys out of the pram moment' in my work carpark when I couldnt escape my own car.

So much so that I decided to move the car to the other side of the carpark to carry on in private without several bemused on-site engineers watching on

[Pexseven]

Yeah i had this problem the morning after a Very Cold night and the drivers door was frozen solid ! i seem to think that i sprayed some de icer into the key hole to get the door open, but then the lock stuck open and the door was bouncing away. yeah so i sprayed wd40 onto the catch then pulled the door shut and started the engine and got the blower on warmest setting, and i think that warm gets into the door panels thus un freezing the lock ! but sometimes the rear passenger door bounces out when its not been to cold and takes 3 or 4 shuts to eventually catch !

[A911DOM]

In the interests of a complete story:

When I left work I still had to access the car via the passenger door (drivers door not unlocked or releasing) - I feared the worst that I had broken the door release mechanism when it was frozen...

Having started and run the car 20km's to pick up the boy, I parked in a suitably subtle spot and assumed I'd be climbing over the centre console again - but NO, the drivers door opened like nothing'd ever happened!

I think, with a combination of ice / then the confusion of the car as to whether it was locked or unlocked it took all day to thaw properly, and for the ignition to auto lock/unlock the doors for it to resume service.

Anyway - I didn't have to have an embarrassing public hissy fit when I got to work this morning

In future I will try not to wash the car before a sharp freeze!