Driver door does not latch in cold weather

Maintenance/Repairs
1

Hey all,
I have what seems to be a common problem.

When it gets cold (below freezing), sometimes in the morning the driver side door will open but will refuse to latch closed. Most of the time, after about 10 minutes of driving, the door will latch if closed again.

I have looked over multiple threads here all saying to lubricate the latch.

However, I don’t think that will work in this situation. The latch is completely free moving when it will not latch. I can push the latch into closed position, but it does not automatically move back to open position, like it should. It just seems that the latch is detached from an internal spring or mechanism which “clicks” it closed.

The internal door handle does not move back to normal position either. You can freely move it around with no resistance.
There is no resistance when pulling the external door handle, either.

I have a BMW 2013 X1 28i.

Any ideas on what is going on here?

2

Yeah, something in-between those elements is sticking. You’ll have to pull the inner door panel to investigate. And rather than just spraying lubricant on it, it helps to clean off all the dried up prior lubricant first. I like to use aerosol white lithium grease for latches…

3 Likes