Sorry to reopen an old thread but having looked through all none quite 100% get to question I’m interested in!
Do all californias with the full electric door have the ability to be used in manual? The dealer said he didn’t think it had a “disable” option.
If it does, can someone share how does this work and how “heavy” is it - is it practical to use it like this ALL the time?
I know there is a lot of anti electric door opinion - but we’ve seen a van we are really keen on and the one downside is that it has this, so we are trying to figure out if it’s a deal breaker or not.
We’ve got the power latching manual door on our current t6 ocean, and we do leave it half open sometimes, and are sometimes opening and closing it all the time on site - we have dogs and so sometimes need it for containment!
Any help appreciated !
We bought our MY23 T6.1 second hand and it came with the electric door. We were none the wiser at the time (and hadn't been exposed to the opinions around it) and everything else was right about the van for us - the only concern I had was it being another "nice to have" that added complication and more stuff to potentially go wrong and cost money. Although, I'm a little comforted by the fact that it is possible to cut the wires and go back to a normal door if I ever need to - and I've watched videos on how to replace the mechanism if it gets sticky (DIY-able, but looked pretty scary and awkward).
That breakage concern is still there of course, but other than that we've come to really like it. It's been very handy at times, and while everyone seems to loath the beeping I honestly don't find it that bad - obviously I'd rather not have it beep, but it's not super loud and the beep isn't a deal breaker IMO (on ours at least).
But.....
We've had a couple of times where it simply wouldn't open by itself and needed a bit of a nudge. This seems to have been on frosty mornings, presumably where there's a bit more resistance on the door leaving the frame.
Our drive is on quite an angle which noticeably makes the mechanism work harder, I'm a bit worried that will accelerate wear.
We've learned you can't lock the van before the door has completed closing, otherwise it won't complete the soft close action and leave the door locked, but not flush at the back.
I definitely wouldn't use it regularly in manual mode - it's far too heavy and feels like it would probably do it more harm than good used that way.
You can't leave the door half-open with it, and you can't just open the door a little way to grab something - it's all or nothing.
We use the inside handle for closing, always. It's much easier to just tap it lightly - and it's really nice to be able to walk away and let it do its thing. Using the external one works fine, it just feels more clunky to do so for some reason.
Make damn sure you don't have any coats hanging near the door. Because it closes itself and you can walk away from it, we're less vigilant about things getting trapped. If something jams in the contact points it can be a bloody nightmare (this goes the same for any door, just the electric close adds risk through inattention).
So, with perfect hindsight and doing it again....
Would I choose a van with the electric door? Probably not - it's not needed, and could do without it.
Would it stop me buying a van if everything else was what I wanted? Probably not - hard to find the perfect van, and this isn't a big enough concession.
Am I happy with it now I've had it for 18 months? Yes, I like it, until something inevitably goes wrong.
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