XK door doesn't want to close?
Discussion
Something interesting this morning! Bit frosty, run credit card around window seals as usual because it's an X150 XK with the frameless doors, open door and get in - fine.
Start car, hit the "clear everything" button and then get out to scrape the windscreen as I'm in a little bit of a hurry. Fine.
Get back in car, pull door towards me to shut, and the door lock doesn't engage. Not fine.
Instead of it going 'clunk' and the window going up to seal, the window goes up then the door moves away from me a bit, the window drops and it re-opens. The Drivers Door Open thing keeps coming up on the dash. Office car park is OK but not great, and the car is simply not secure because just pulling gently on the door opens it as the latch and locks won't engage.
Ten minutes of mad panicking, followed by deciding that sod it, the garage is only a couple of miles away, it's still early, I can just hold the door shut and drive there and make it their problem. So, I hold the driver's door shut (having checked, the passenger one still shuts fine) and set off. As I get to the end of the road, I change hands holding the door shut in order to indicate only to discover that the door appears to have closed and locked as usual.
Get to the garage, get out of the car, shut the door behind me, and it closes like normal. Get back in car, drive to work, door is fine, lock it and walk away confused.
TL:DR - the door latch didn't want to engage first thing. After I'd driven about 50 yards, it seemed to engage normally. And now seems to be working fine. Anyone run into this before?
Start car, hit the "clear everything" button and then get out to scrape the windscreen as I'm in a little bit of a hurry. Fine.
Get back in car, pull door towards me to shut, and the door lock doesn't engage. Not fine.
Instead of it going 'clunk' and the window going up to seal, the window goes up then the door moves away from me a bit, the window drops and it re-opens. The Drivers Door Open thing keeps coming up on the dash. Office car park is OK but not great, and the car is simply not secure because just pulling gently on the door opens it as the latch and locks won't engage.
Ten minutes of mad panicking, followed by deciding that sod it, the garage is only a couple of miles away, it's still early, I can just hold the door shut and drive there and make it their problem. So, I hold the driver's door shut (having checked, the passenger one still shuts fine) and set off. As I get to the end of the road, I change hands holding the door shut in order to indicate only to discover that the door appears to have closed and locked as usual.
Get to the garage, get out of the car, shut the door behind me, and it closes like normal. Get back in car, drive to work, door is fine, lock it and walk away confused.
TL:DR - the door latch didn't want to engage first thing. After I'd driven about 50 yards, it seemed to engage normally. And now seems to be working fine. Anyone run into this before?
Yes, this is far from unheard of. The cold weather either seems to affect the door latch I think, it's happened to me when I've had the car parked outdoors in very cold weather for a few hours or overnight. I've just resorted to sitting for a while until the car warms up a bit and find it works correctly after that.
Some people on Jaguar-specific forums reckon that giving the window rubbers a wipe down with some sort of silicone-based lubricant can help but given that the window drop/raise when you open and close the door seems to work OK I'm not convinced. I tried it anyway last winter and I still got the frozen door syndrome like you describe.
Some people on Jaguar-specific forums reckon that giving the window rubbers a wipe down with some sort of silicone-based lubricant can help but given that the window drop/raise when you open and close the door seems to work OK I'm not convinced. I tried it anyway last winter and I still got the frozen door syndrome like you describe.
Mine does exactly the same on any heavily frosted morning.
I soon learnt that just sitting in the car with the door pulled closed for 10 mins with the heating on full bore would free mine up.
I intially tried WD40, warm water on outside, etc... but none of that seemd to make any difference.
I soon learnt that just sitting in the car with the door pulled closed for 10 mins with the heating on full bore would free mine up.
I intially tried WD40, warm water on outside, etc... but none of that seemd to make any difference.
I had an XJ40 and two S-Types and none of them suffered from fozen lock mechanisms.
Sometimes I think that Jaguar thought 'Hey, we've made perfectly functioning locks for decades, let's make a s
t one instead'.
It's only a few bits of metal!
Let's not even talk about the glovebox latch - what the fk is going on there?
Sometimes I think that Jaguar thought 'Hey, we've made perfectly functioning locks for decades, let's make a s
t one instead'.It's only a few bits of metal!
Let's not even talk about the glovebox latch - what the f
k is going on there?Gassing Station | Jaguar | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff