[RyanS]

The other day I tried to get out of my wife's 2011 535i and when I double pulled the door handle the door would not unlock. I had to use the center unlock button to get the lock to release. Then today she tells me that she tried to close her drivers door and it made a banging sound and didn't close. She thought the seatbelt was in the way. It wasn't, it was the latch and she had to use her key fob to unlock the door to get it to release so that the door could close.

It seems like I probably have an actuator going bad and it needs to get replaced ASAP before the door gets stuck closed or can't be closed. From googling I've found this is a somewhat common problem on BMWs. Others have complained that the dealerships won't do anything if they can't duplicate the issue. Others have had to escalate it to regional HQ and above to get BMW to cover it under warranty and they did only after the customer stated it was a serious safety issue.

Has anyone here had these issues or does anyone have any advice?

[bake]

I had the same exact issue and just had it fixed a few months ago. It is covered under the new car warranty, but will not be covered under the CPO warranty. Mine started acting up while I was still under my new car warranty, but I wasn't in a rush to bring it in. I assumed my CPO warranty was just like the new car warranty. I assumed wrong. The repair ended up costing me $600+. I believe the part is almost $300 and I would have had to pay the diagnostic fee anyway, so I just went ahead and let the stealership do the repair. I wouldn't have saved much by doing it myself after having to pay the diagnostic fee.

[Bbb34]

I had mine fixed few months ago under CPO, I'm in Canada, so maybe CPO details are different here.

Got lucky that I had service manager with me when I dropped off the car and reproduced it for him. As it turns out, later that day techs in the shop couldn't reproduce it (in their defence it didn't happen all the time).

Make sure you have your phone with you and film it, reproduce it first yourself before you head in for service, and show them the video, if you have more than one, even better. A bit of work on your part, but hard to argue with.

[4MULA_1]

I had this same issue, door latch would lock while door was open and I wouldn't be able to close the door.

Mine wasn't as simple as unlocking using the remote or the lock button in the center console, I would have to sit there and mess around with it sometimes for a couple of minutes, sometimes for 5-7 minutes till the door was able to close. Its very frustrating, embarrassing, and could be very dangerous if you're ever in a situation where you just need to get out of a place quickly, or lock your door.

Had to take it in for service twice before the issue seems to have been resolved. I had to record a couple of videos showing all this for them to actually do something about it. Dealers think you enjoy coming in for service, so they don't believe you till you have proof.

They ended up replacing the latch, I could get you the exact part numbers if you'd like.

[RyanS]

Thanks for the replies! The new car warranty is expired, but we have an extended warranty through USAA (Assurant) so I'm not looking forward to dealing with all that. I still have to see if the extended warranty will cover any of the repair.

I've told my wife to video it if it happens again. It just so happens that when it happened to me I was at the dealership for a tire replacement, but since it was the first time it had done that to me I just unlocked it with the center button and didn't give it much thought since I was in a hurry. Then it happened with my wife a few days later. Problem is now we likely have to wait for it to happen again and get it on video (and hope it will unlock) so the dealership won't blow us off.

[RyanS]

Originally Posted by 4MULA_1

They ended up replacing the latch, I could get you the exact part numbers if you'd like.

I don't think I need the part number, but thanks anyways