My wifes Beetle has frameless doors.
When you pull the handle the window drops slightly as door opens. When you shut the door the window then pushed up to firm seal again.
It doesn’t like snow and ice.
Tonight window didn’t drop when door opened but obviously got past the seal. But when shutting the door the glass stays on the outside of the seal. Thus not forming a tight seal from water or even for secure reasons.
We had snow last night then a heavy freeze so in this case I think it was the ice that had formed at bottom of window where it meets the body of the door that was stopping window from dropping.
Am sure this must be the same for other cars with similar frameless doors.
Any suggestions to prevent this?
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>> Any suggestions to prevent this?
A garage? A different car ;-)
Can you not pour some warm/hot(ish) water on the door? I don't think you can prevent this if the car is outside uncovered.
I was lucky I had no problems with the Passat CC with frameless doors. Had I had it in 2009/2010 I'd have had real problems getting in during those cold snaps.
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Never Ever buy a car with frameless doors. There are numerous reasons why its not a mainstream feature.
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I hate them. In my Merc people were forever using the top of the window to pull themselves out of the car. Enough to make one weep.
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My 3dr 123d had frameless door with the dropping window system, I never had any problems though I didn't like it, it's an unnecessary complexity. As far as stopping it freezing up, you could put some silicone lube or grease on the seals.
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Over the years I’ve owned 3 Subaru’s with frameless windows, and my last bmw 3 series convertible, bought when it was 6yo and owned by me for a further 6 years, also had frameless windows. Never, ever experienced a single problem with any of them.
Only the bmw lived in the garage... all the Subaru’s lived outside, and I get more than my fair share of snow, wind and ice in the Y Dales
Last edited by: legacylad on Tue 26 Dec 17 at 23:18
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MINI had them, worked faultlessly on that - but how will they be another three years down the line. MX5 has the same system as well
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There are frameless doors and frameless doors...
Most convertibles have frameless doors where the windows drop a coupe of mm to drop the glass below the hood overlap just as the door opens. These are the problematic ones (frozen shut, window motor kaput, etc.)
Some hard top cars have frameless doors just for style where the glass does not need to drop to enable the door to open, but these can have other problems... I remember my mother shutting the door on Dad's frameless-doored Citroen DS Pallas many years ago, before the seat-belt had fully recoiled. The seat belt buckle got caught between the frameless window and the body. Guess which bit of the car won?
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>> Never Ever buy a car with frameless doors. There are numerous reasons why its not
>> a mainstream feature.
>>
They’re an inevitability in a convertible, and while I also wince when people use the window to push the door shut I’ve never actually had a problem. The same was true of the MINI, though that did sometimes struggle in ice. They were a lot more vertical though. But, more impressively, the 1994 Audi Convertible has frameless windows that still drop slightly on unlocking and which are still leak and draft free - and cope with the jet wash used by the local car cleaning crew at the garden centre.
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>> They’re an inevitability in a convertible,
I don't see why. I've had traditional convertibles where the hood frame emerges from the stowage compartment as the hood is raised and by clever parallelogram links clicks into position to form a right-angle replicating the missing top and rear sections of the frame. The glass then moves in that frame exactly as in a saloon.
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>>replicating the missing top and rear sections of the frame
Gosh, so the door is frameless then?
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>> I don't see why. I've had traditional convertibles where the hood frame emerges from the
>> stowage compartment as the hood is raised and by clever parallelogram links clicks into position
>> to form a right-angle replicating the missing top and rear sections of the frame. The
>> glass then moves in that frame exactly as in a saloon.
>>
So if the roof’s up and the door closed, with the window in the frame that’s appeared, what happens when you open the door? Isn’t the glass trapped? There’s a channel in the roof of both our convertibles that’s secures the window at the top, which is why the window drops a few mm when opened to allow the glass to clear it. Nothing at the rear of the window, but then both also have rear windows...
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Zero, how many times do I need to explain about my wife and VW Beetles??
Practicalities, features, faults don't come in to it.
It has to be a Beetle.
Wonder if I could get a cover that covers the body rather than just the windscreen to keep it a bit warmer!
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Never an issue with my Foresters, but they didn't do the "drop a cm" trick.
Apparently www.amazon.co.uk/Gummi-Pflege-Rubber-Stick-100ml/dp/B007TNOQDI is the daddy when it comes to stopping glass stick to rubber seals but never needed it.
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Never marry women who like cars with frameless doors.
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>> Zero, how many times do I need to explain about my wife and VW Beetles??
>>
>> Practicalities, features, faults don't come in to it.
>>
>> It has to be a Beetle.
Wouldn't tolerate that crap from my wife. When I bought the beemer and she moaned about the expense, I said to her, Despite lashing out 1700 quid on heated electric comfort seats for you, I have saved enough money on the deal that you can have a new vacuum cleaner or a new iron.
You need to get a grip man.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 27 Dec 17 at 19:29
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Is the car comfy overnight?? 😀
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I was fine till I said "as you are getting on a bit, I think we need to swap the Fiesta for a Honda Jazz"
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How do you manage quotation marks with the wand attached to your forehead?
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Spray silcone lube on to a lint free cloth, and wipe it over the seals.
Two winters with a Mini convertible and not one issue with the seals in any weather.
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Was the Mini convertible okay in say the winters north go Glasgow with this approach? Or do you live a lot further south? Just wondering... ;-)
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I understand why these are required in convertibles but don't know what purpose they serve in a non-convertible car.
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>> I understand why these are required in convertibles but don't know what purpose they serve
>> in a non-convertible car.
>>
There are probably many reasons though on on some BMWS the 3dr and 2dr coupes share the same doors as the convertibles.
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>> There are probably many reasons though on on some BMWS the 3dr and 2dr coupes
>> share the same doors as the convertibles.
>>
Though, interestingly (or not...), in the case of the two series despite sharing doors with the coupe the convertibles windows are a slightly different shape to those of the coupe... how do I know? BMW supplied Autoglass with the coupe version after a lawnmower incident in the summer. It didn’t fit...
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>> Though, interestingly (or not...), in the case of the two series despite sharing doors with
>> the coupe the convertibles windows are a slightly different shape to those of the coupe... >>
Though AFAIK the door is the same, 1-Series 3dr, 2-Series coupe and 2-Series convertible.
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Frameless on our CLK with that elec mechanism that pulls the window out of the channel and pulls the rear window back a bit.
A non-issue as far as we can see. On a morning when my 5-series windows are frosted so they refuse to go down until the car warms a bit you plip the CLK and despite being covered in frost all over it moves the windows as if summer.
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Frameless doors - rtj70
