Why have an electric door?

David Eccles · May 6, 2015

The Cali I have just had on loan whilst mine in for work had an electric sliding door. It was initially fun playing "open the door unobserved and surprise people" game (grandson thought it very cool but in diff words than that!) but actually a pain as at Stanford Hall this weekend somehow the key fob in my pocket seemed to randomly operate it every time I moved! Our dog did not really like that beep beep beep either (I know you can turn it off if you read the tome). And battery drain without hook up over a weekend was a bit scary!
I can see delivery or taxi drivers finding it useful but why bother as an option on a camper? Am just intrigued by why you need one!

MCh1777 · May 6, 2015

Of the 'nice to have' options on my Cali, the electric sliding door is the one I really like. I always seem to be carrying something and it's great to be able to just walk up and into the already open door. However, I now have sliding door failure anxiety having read all the dire warnings about its unreliability on the forum.
The one option that I now find not nice to have is the wifi. Every time I get round to using it (which is not so often) I get a message from EE inviting me to spend £8 for a few more Mb as my monthly allowance has been exceeded. I haven't looked into this but my guess is that my iPhone decides

MCh1777 · May 6, 2015

Oops hit the wrong button...contd from above..

My iPhone decides it has found a wifi connection and will update all its apps. Any help would be appreciated.

dannosail · May 6, 2015

Difficult to argue you ever 'need' one but I certainly find ours useful if parked on a hill.

Some may argue the opposite but I think it's also better with a young family since the door opens and closes at a steady rate and will reverse if interfered with = less risk of trapped fingers etc.

I think 'nice to have' electronics are just another cause of expensive repairs but as my van was secondhand I've got the electric one.

jeff · May 6, 2015

Comes in handy when used as a everyday car. We just turn it off when camping.

WelshGas · May 6, 2015

Switch off WiFi on the iPhone until you want to use it. Or disable the WiFi in your van until you wish to use it.

GrannyJen · May 7, 2015

I love my electric sliding door.

I didn't choose it, it came with it, and reading the forums I thought I had bought a bucket load of problems but I have had no hassles with it whatsoever.

The first time I fell in love with it was the first night I slept in the cali, a 200 yard dash from the pub to where I was camped in horizontal torrential rain. No need to stop, door opening as I was half way through my dash and door closing as my backside was half way through the open hatch.

In snow, brilliant, carrying loads of stuff, brilliant, half way through eating a sandwich and crossing a car park, brilliant.

Not a necessity, just a comfort aid, but love it.

PhilipGG · May 7, 2015

We have an electric door on our new Cali. We hired one before buying one and realised the door was heavy and a bit dangerous for our two and four year old kids who kept playing with it, especially with the van facing down hill.

The electric one works really well and it is not as heavy to operate with it switched off as I thought. So we disabled it when open to stop out kids from messing around with it. It's also quite cool when you pull up and open it remotely. Shame the door is on wrong side of the van though!

GrannyJen · May 7, 2015

PhilipGG said:
We have an electric door on our new Cali. We hired one before buying one and realised the door was heavy and a bit dangerous for our two and four year old kids who kept playing with it, especially with the van facing down hill.

The electric one works really well and it is not as heavy to operate with it switched off as I thought. So we disabled it when open to stop out kids from messing around with it. It's also quite cool when you pull up and open it remotely. Shame the door is on wrong side of the van though!

But ...

Have you thought ...

If the door was the other side than having to climb over the kitchen to get in would make it difficult? :shocked

WelshGas · May 7, 2015

Maybe "wrong" for this country but Europe is much bigger than the little old UK.

holliers · May 7, 2015

Re: Door, as mentioned, in the rain being able to open it as you run to the van is nice. An with the walk-through driver/passenger seat, everyone in the family piles in "A-Team Style" and then distributes themselves in the dry.

Re: Wi-Fi, I set my iPhone to "Forget this Network" when I'm not using the van Wi-Fi, else it will choose it in preference to other Wi-Fi or 3/4G. You just rescan and enter the password when you need it again.

Mark

Freeley · May 7, 2015

I love our electric door. It can be a temperamental but on the whole works as it should. I even like the beep beep noise as it makes me think of holidays!

Cautious Lip · May 8, 2015

You can turn off Automatic App Updates in settings if you wish too

treecity · May 8, 2015

MCh1777 said:
Oops hit the wrong button...contd from above..

My iPhone decides it has found a wifi connection and will update all its apps. Any help would be appreciated.

On your iPhone:

Go to "settings"

Then "iTunes & App Store"

Then scroll down to "Use Cellular Data" and swipe that button to the left so it is grey and not green

Now, your apps will only update automatically if you are on a Wifi network.

If you don't want then to update at all, in "iTunes & App Store" just make sure all "Automatic Downloads" are set to grey and not green

AndyFromTheBrac · May 11, 2015

MCh1777 said:
The one option that I now find not nice to have is the wifi. Every time I get round to using it (which is not so often) I get a message from EE inviting me to spend £8 for a few more Mb as my monthly allowance has been exceeded. I haven't looked into this but my guess is that my iPhone decides

Do you mean it is because the phone connected to your "MiFi" If that's the case then your phone thinks it's on regular WiFi (and starts updating itself). You can turn this behavior off specifically (turning off mobile data does nothing as the remember the phone thinks it is connected to WiFi anyway)

To do this;

Settings -> iTunes & App Store - De-select auto downloads for updates (and apps, music etc if they're on)

The drawback to that is you then have to manually update any apps, but the little badge next to the app store icon lets you know when there's stuff to update.

DMB9R · May 22, 2015

We have an electric door on our Cali and would not do without it. We also have twin electric sliders on our T5 and have never had one problem with them. Too many people think the worst is going to happen.