Electric side door conversion to fully manual?

[Max-Felix]

Update from Hazy, nothing too conclusive but:

"....I am pretty sure the motor can be disconnected and this will reduce the force required to open and close the door. However there may also be a runner which may need to be disconnected. If this is something you would like us to do we charge...£X per hour and we will need the vehicle brought to us...".

The tech was reluctant to commit to a likely time as not something they have done before but estimated anything 1 - 3 hrs.

 

[WelshGas]

Update from Hazy, nothing too conclusive but:

"....I am pretty sure the motor can be disconnected and this will reduce the force required to open and close the door. However there may also be a runner which may need to be disconnected. If this is something you would like us to do we charge...£X per hour and we will need the vehicle brought to us...".

The tech was reluctant to commit to a likely time as not something they have done before but estimated anything 1 - 3 hrs.

There are also different Guide Rails top & bottom for Manual and Electric doors.

http://www.oemepc.com/vw/part_singl...843/subcategory/843050/part_id/3684006/lang/e

 

[Max-Felix]

Thanks WG, the upper rail is shown as one type on that pic but not sure if it actually differs, Hazy did say one rail that might need removing.

Presumably though if they are retrofitting elec doors they must have a pile of manual door parts!

 

[jeff]

The tech was reluctant to commit to a likely time as not something they have done before but estimated anything 1 - 3 hrs.

Had the motor replaced . Main dealers 2.5 hrs . So sounds about right time allowance.

 

[Max-Felix]

Certainly better than the 2 days and £2k per door the conversion costs!

 

[Max-Felix]

Having tested (and owned now) an electric door Cali for approx 8 hours I can indeed confirm it has more hissy fits than my ten year old daughter.

Kickbacks, is it locked/is it not locked?, will it open halfway or all the way. Yep, wonderful German engineering.

Thankfully the manual mode is not *too* bad and the beeper even seems subdued so may live with it...

 

[ROKET]

Having tested (and owned now) an electric door Cali for approx 8 hours I can indeed confirm it has more hissy fits than my ten year old daughter.

Kickbacks, is it locked/is it not locked?, will it open halfway or all the way. Yep, wonderful German engineering.

Thankfully the manual mode is not *too* bad and the beeper even seems subdued so may live with i

Having tested (and owned now) an electric door Cali for approx 8 hours I can indeed confirm it has more hissy fits than my ten year old daughter.

Kickbacks, is it locked/is it not locked?, will it open halfway or all the way. Yep, wonderful German engineering.

Thankfully the manual mode is not *too* bad and the beeper even seems subdued so may live with it...

I have not had any problems with my electric side door,you make me feel i am the only one with a perfect door.

 

[ROKET]

I have not had any problems with my electric side door.surely i am not the only one with a perfect side door.If closing manually put your left hand on the back of the door to assist closing from the outside,just before closing remove your hand.

 

[sidepod]

just before closing remove your hand.

Brilliant.

 

[Joker 1299]

I have not had any problems with my electric side door.surely i am not the only one with a perfect side door.If closing manually put your left hand on the back of the door to assist closing from the outside,just before closing remove your hand.

No, you're not. I have one and wouldn't be without it. The benefits far outweigh the occasional kickback. I had two on my Caravelle and they were fine too. They would sometimes kick back if the van was parked at a tilt (2 wheels on the kerb, for example) but a helping hand on the handle while the self latching mechanism engaged always worked.

 

[Max-Felix]

Some people get lucky and may indeed enjoy the ponderous inflexible beepy little VW work of wonder but I can only speak from my own experience.

It's the first electric door I've ever had in 30+ vehicles and in all honesty it would probably be the last option I'd ever tick on any vehicle and then only if the salesman had a genuine gun to my head!

I have a huge service history with the Cali I've just bought.

First warranty claim (for the door) was at 2 years old for intermittent non shutting.

Next was at SMG Cowford at 4 years old (new motor and other parts) with a bill for £800

Next door issue was at 5 years old (no cost details).

Last was at 8 years old (track, coil, springs etc + labour). = £842.

Add that little lot to the cost of the option in the first place and it does not seem like a great tick on the order sheet...

 

[SusiBus]

Our T5 had an electric door that gave us never ending grief, in and out of various dealers, damaged twice in the process, but to no avail.Then at the first Cali meet at Breen a fellow owner who had been down the same route, said Cordwallis the VW Van Centre Heathrow had cured his with a software mod. l contacted the service manager, he gave me the software details which I passed on to my dealer. Wiz Bang it was cured thanks to fellow Cali club member.
I posted details of the software mod a few years ago, but sorry I can't remember them, so perhaps a call to Cordwallis will furnish you with the info; they were really helpful to me.

SusiBus T6 has a manual door----BLISS.
No bleeping in the middle of the night! No flat batteries! Is easy to open and close manually! Can be left half open, and didn't cost anything!!!!

 

[Fryers!]

Our electric sliding door has so far given us three flat batteries where we have camped more than a few days without hook up (it runs off the vehicle battery) I really hate it and would love a manual door and would never spec it again.

 

[Bobbybus]

Our T5 had an electric door that gave us never ending grief, in and out of various dealers, damaged twice in the process, but to no avail.Then at the first Cali meet at Breen a fellow owner who had been down the same route, said Cordwallis the VW Van Centre Heathrow had cured his with a software mod. l contacted the service manager, he gave me the software details which I passed on to my dealer. Wiz Bang it was cured thanks to fellow Cali club member.
I posted details of the software mod a few years ago, but sorry I can't remember them, so perhaps a call to Cordwallis will furnish you with the info; they were really helpful to me.

SusiBus T6 has a manual door----BLISS.
No bleeping in the middle of the night! No flat batteries! Is easy to open and close manually! Can be left half open, and didn't cost anything!!!!

I can vouch for the effectiveness of the software update Graham. Only a couple of times in 2.5 years has the door decided it did not want to close and that was when Bobbybus was at a slight angle outside my parents, just like Joker 1299 stated.
I love the door, apart from the beep.

 

[SusiBus]

We had a battery go flat over one single night whilst wild camping on a cold night when we were in and out, and trying to keep the door closed all the time.
The solution we adopted in the end was to never use the electric door when not on hook up overnight - although we found it a bit of a pain climbing in and out of the small sliding window as a means of access for fear of ending up with a flat battery.
Someone has subsequently suggested that rather than climbing in/out of the window, it might be easier to press the electric door deactivation button on the dashboard, but I am not a techie!!

 

[pjm-84]

My side door has been a PITA.

Vehicle is back in with the dealer this coming week to try and resolve the issue. Then a respray. Again.

 

[BikerGran]

I haven't had any problems with my electric side door apart from the fact that it rattles badly. We usually turn off the electric overnight on a campsite so as not to annoy others though I don't actually think the sound carries very far, also so that we can have it open a little way if it's rainy.
If I'm on my own in the various fields I frequent I just leave it on because yes, I do find it heavy to operate manually.

 

[pjm-84]

Well mine spent another 7days in the dealers. They fortunately had a T6 California in with an electric side door. So they compared the two.

Mine would trap paper between the door and the wheelarch. The T6 wouldn't. New motor and running gear and I seem to have considerably more tolerance. Action seems smoother and the judder less, but still present.

Seems this may have resolved the problem for the time being.

 

[Max-Felix]

Sorry I never updated this but I finally converted it to manual at the end of the summer.

I know some love these doors and and if they work reliably for you and continue to do so you're a lucky customer!

In my experience and many others it seems and IMHO it is a truly terrible, unreliable, annoying, slow, noisy, inflexible, inconvenient, money eating, power consuming, panel gouging, shonky designed, plastic infested, gremlin prone, cable stretching, poorly designed option from hell.

So, back to manual:

I finally was able to do this at the end of a long summer trip and after five weeks of using the electric door manually I wish I had done it before but that's the benefit of hindsight.

Just to recap this vehicle was a 2008 and in it's lifetime and by previous owners it had the following:

First warranty claim (for the door) was at 2 years old for intermittent non shutting.

Next was at SMG Cowford at 4 years old (new motor and other parts) with a bill for £800

Next door issue was at 5 years old (no cost details).

Last was at 8 years old (track, coil, springs etc + labour). = £842.

Also the door had (they run very close) scraped the panel behind meaning a large bodywork bill.

In our ownership this was the reason we had to go manual as during one of it's jolty, banging hissy fits during the trip it had again gouged the panel meaning more expensive bodywork - obviously it had to be fixed or converted to manual or it would just knacker another freshly repaired and painted panel.

So disclaimer - do this at your own risk, it's one way only but can be reinstated with a new cable set if you really wanted to.

As everyone knows you can use the door in 'manual' mode but as you have to push against the tension of the cable/pulleys/motor it is very stiff.

In short the easiest thing is to remove or cut the cable, simple as that.

First remove the long cover panel over the main upper door track - a Torx screw at the front on the C pillar (you'll need a right angle tool) and the other behind the OS rear light cluster.

The panel is held on with trim buttons too - prise off carefully as it is thin and flexible and easy to crease. You'll need to carefully manipulate it off at the C pillar end.

 

[Max-Felix]

Continued...

I did not take many photos at the time but will share the ones I did.

You will see the main motor and pulley assembly behind this cover:





IIRC there are two screws to remove and you then prise the cover off to reveal:



(No pic) but this is obviously the parts removed - when still mounted you will see the cable running around this pulley - simple thing next - snip it! Drastic yes but it solves the issue 100% and it could always be replaced if you (or a future buyer) really wanted to. You need to do the same at the main attachment point to the door itself by the C pillar. Again IIRC, do this by the ferrule pictured:

 

[Max-Felix]

Continued...

Once removed - mind the cable end does not flick off into an eye - you can see the drive motor:



So pop the cover off minus the pulleys. I did not but you can of course isolate the power to the motor to fully incapacitate it but it no longer has any connection to the door mechanism so will simply rotate freely and then stop if activated by the remote control accidently. To disable the dash switch you need to add a jumper across the terminals shown:



That's it. AFAIK the door tracks and major mechanical parts are the same and once you have removed the drag from the cable/motor then to operate the door in fully manual mode is a joy to behold (especially if you have been fighting the thing for more than a month previously!). It feels like every other manual VW van door I have ever used.

 

[Anthony1]

Interesting. I will consider that.

 

[Bellcrew]

Sorry I never updated this but I finally converted it to manual at the end of the summer.

I know some love these doors and and if they work reliably for you and continue to do so you're a lucky customer!

In my experience and many others it seems and IMHO it is a truly terrible, unreliable, annoying, slow, noisy, inflexible, inconvenient, money eating, power consuming, panel gouging, shonky designed, plastic infested, gremlin prone, cable stretching, poorly designed option from hell.

So, back to manual:

I finally was able to do this at the end of a long summer trip and after five weeks of using the electric door manually I wish I had done it before but that's the benefit of hindsight.

Just to recap this vehicle was a 2008 and in it's lifetime and by previous owners it had the following:

First warranty claim (for the door) was at 2 years old for intermittent non shutting.

Next was at SMG Cowford at 4 years old (new motor and other parts) with a bill for £800

Next door issue was at 5 years old (no cost details).

Last was at 8 years old (track, coil, springs etc + labour). = £842.

Also the door had (they run very close) scraped the panel behind meaning a large bodywork bill.

In our ownership this was the reason we had to go manual as during one of it's jolty, banging hissy fits during the trip it had again gouged the panel meaning more expensive bodywork - obviously it had to be fixed or converted to manual or it would just knacker another freshly repaired and painted panel.

So disclaimer - do this at your own risk, it's one way only but can be reinstated with a new cable set if you really wanted to.

As everyone knows you can use the door in 'manual' mode but as you have to push against the tension of the cable/pulleys/motor it is very stiff.

In short the easiest thing is to remove or cut the cable, simple as that.

First remove the long cover panel over the main upper door track - a Torx screw at the front on the C pillar (you'll need a right angle tool) and the other behind the OS rear light cluster.

The panel is held on with trim buttons too - prise off carefully as it is thin and flexible and easy to crease. You'll need to carefully manipulate it off at the C pillar end.

View attachment 29808

"IMHO it is a truly terrible, unreliable, annoying, slow, noisy, inflexible, inconvenient, money eating, power consuming, panel gouging, shonky designed, plastic infested, gremlin prone, cable stretching, poorly designed option from hell."
Fabulous critique, best I have read for a long time.

 

[Anthony1]

Continued...

Once removed - mind the cable end does not flick off into an eye - you can see the drive motor:

View attachment 29814

So pop the cover off minus the pulleys. I did not but you can of course isolate the power to the motor to fully incapacitate it but it no longer has any connection to the door mechanism so will simply rotate freely and then stop if activated by the remote control accidently. To disable the dash switch you need to add a jumper across the terminals shown:

View attachment 29816

That's it. AFAIK the door tracks and major mechanical parts are the same and once you have removed the drag from the cable/motor then to operate the door in fully manual mode is a joy to behold (especially if you have been fighting the thing for more than a month previously!). It feels like every other manual VW van door I have ever used.

Do you have to remove the rear light cluster?

 

[Max-Felix]

Yes IIRC, but very simple - just a couple of screws. Tricky bit is getting the panel off (and back on) without scratching anything or deforming it.