Are door handles really such a hard thing to get working reliably?

[whitex]

When I picked up my Taycan, on 3rd or 4th day I spent 10 minutes trying to lock the car in the middle of a snow storm. Every time I locked it, it unlocked itself, whether I used the fob, or the touch control, it didn't matter. It kept happening to me less as I drove home into warmer weather and winter has passed. Then winter came back, started happening again, so took it into the dealer to fix. They reproduced the issue, and replaced all 4 handles. Great service by the way. The new handles worked for a couple of weeks before the auto-unlock came back, but this time the driver's handle also stops working for touch lock, sometimes for more than a day at a time. I thought Porsche is an experienced automotive company which would know how to make reliable products, so what's up with the door handles? I get EV is new to Porsche, but door handles? Are Taycan door handles some bleeding edge, space alien technology that Porsche hasn't grasped yet? Tesla, a brand new company with no automotive experience had issues with door handles, but those were manifesting themselves as mechanical failures 2-4 years into ownership. With Porsche, it seems their design doesn't work from the factory, or perhaps it works for 2 weeks before requiring replacement? I'm honestly scared to take it in for a new set of door handles again, since replacing them once made it worse, so maybe the second replacement will make things even worse?

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[sandro73]

I would try to deactivate the keyless entry for the winter time, so you have no problems anymore.
Also you can deactivate the key after locking the car, by pressing close and open for 2-4 sec. so the car goes in carwash mode. By pressing back the opening button, you will disable the carwash mode.

 

[whitex]

I would try to deactivate the keyless entry for the winter time, so you have no problems anymore.
Also you can deactivate the key after locking the car, by pressing close and open for 2-4 sec. so the car goes in carwash mode. By pressing back the opening button, you will disable the carwash mode and get back in the car.

I get what you're saying but it's a workaround, not a solution. Also, not 100% sure it will work, but I can see it might. However, it's sign of a bad product if manufacturer just keeps suggesting disabling features which are broken. PMC+/PMCC melt plugs, "oh, no problem, just use it at half power, problem solved", they also added some stickers to the US version so if the PMC+/PMCC burns your house down they have a legal CYA - "we told you it could burn your house down at full power". How hard is it to get door handles working? Can't they just steal some engineers from Tesla, Lucid, or any other manufacturer which has working door handles with keyless entry? I'm sure Porsche has can afford amount of money to could recruit from competition, if not, just license a design from them.

 

[andb]

My Taycan does not lock or unlock randomly even pressing the buttons. I took it to dealer and worked fine, recently not locking again and key not detected fault in the dashboard appeared again even with the key in cup holder.
I don't know what's the problem with Taycan locking system but its very annoying, my Panamera works perfect, a friend 992 has no problems either. So their other cars work fine and much more reliable.

 

[whitex]

My Taycan does not lock or unlock randomly even pressing the buttons. I took it to dealer and worked fine, recently not locking again and key not detected fault in the dashboard appeared again even with the key in cup holder.
I don't know what's the problem with Taycan locking system but its very annoying, my Panamera works perfect, a friend 992 has no problems either. So their other cars work fine and much more reliable.

Yea, that is what I'm afraid might happen to me if I continue to replace the broken handles. Maybe just random unlock in the winter is the best working one one can get.

 

[hifi239]

I understand the reluctance to take it back to the dealer, but with a clearly reproducible and serious problem like this, you should do so. We have established that it isn't the door handles, so there is something else going on, and they will need to dig deeper. Note how long and how far away you are before it unlocks again. Have your phone ready to video the phenomenon. It's not necessarily a bad design. It could be a bad execution, like a defective supplier part (we've seen that before - my car is in the shop now for a new heater). It could be a bad connector or wiring harness that was temporarily moved when they replaced the handles, etc. Obviously, it has to get fixed.

 

[WasserGKuehlt]

I understand the reluctance to take it back to the dealer, but with a clearly reproducible and serious problem like this, you should do so. We have established that it isn't the door handles, so there is something else going on, and they will need to dig deeper.

++ on this; it seems to be an "instance" issue, vs a "class" one. I use my door handles daily without an issue - hard to believe mine's the isolated case where it works as intended.

 

[bsclywilly]

That TSB on unlocking door handles involved the dealer reading codes from all 4 door handles. Maybe make sure your dealer does that after the new handles are installed? I also had the problem and replaced a door handle that was showing up faulty. Silly thing is, after the new handle was installed, it still was showing an error code. The new handle works fine maybe 95% of the time whereas the previous one was like 60%.

 

[Vercingetorix]

Replacing 4 door handles mean you should be replacing whoever is doing the work on your car. No way all 4 went bad twice.

 

[Capt Mike]

When I picked up my Taycan, on 3rd or 4th day I spent 10 minutes trying to lock the car in the middle of a snow storm. Every time I locked it, it unlocked itself, whether I used the fob, or the touch control, it didn't matter. It kept happening to me less as I drove home into warmer weather and winter has passed. Then winter came back, started happening again, so took it into the dealer to fix. They reproduced the issue, and replaced all 4 handles. Great service by the way. The new handles worked for a couple of weeks before the auto-unlock came back, but this time the driver's handle also stops working for touch lock, sometimes for more than a day at a time. I thought Porsche is an experienced automotive company which would know how to make reliable products, so what's up with the door handles? I get EV is new to Porsche, but door handles? Are Taycan door handles some bleeding edge, space alien technology that Porsche hasn't grasped yet? Tesla, a brand new company with no automotive experience had issues with door handles, but those were manifesting themselves as mechanical failures 2-4 years into ownership. With Porsche, it seems their design doesn't work from the factory, or perhaps it works for 2 weeks before requiring replacement? I'm honestly scared to take it in for a new set of door handles again, since replacing them once made it worse, so maybe the second replacement will make things even worse?

My problem is not as drastic as yours but the touch control on the door handles seldom works. I have to use multiple fingers to finally get it to recognize me. I have a 2017 macan and the handles work flawlessly both to lock and unlock. Why would they change the tech from one to the other???

 

[f1eng]

No consolation, I realise, but when I noticed comfort entry was a pricy option whilst standard on our Prius I decided not to bother, so I just use the keyfob to lock or unlock.
So far no problems.
Priuses also been fault free on auto unlocking and touch locking since our first with the feature 11 years ago.
Mind you my wife still uses the keyfob buttons out of habit.
She still uses a wall mounted land line phone 99% of the time too rather than her mobile which she hates.

 

[whitex]

Replacing 4 door handles mean you should be replacing whoever is doing the work on your car. No way all 4 went bad twice.

Per Porsche procedure, they reproed the problem, then followed Porsche procedure - check firmware version, if below some version (which it was) replace all 4 handles. It is quite possible that there are known issues with certain versions (possibly related to production dates). Is it also possible that all 4 door handles must be of the same or at least compatible versions to work properly, therefore it might not be possible to replace only one of them unless they are all compatible with the latest version (since new handle will come latest version).

 

[whitex]

She still uses a wall mounted land line phone 99% of the time too rather than her mobile which she hates.

Here in North America, land lines are getting rare. My parents prefer to use one, but they were forced to "upgrade" to a digital line (essentially VoIP over internet, it came as a VoIP router which plugs into their internet on one end and to the household phone line on the other). They held onto their land line as long as they possibly could, but the provider shut off all land lines just before COVID.

 

[whitex]

My problem is not as drastic as yours but the touch control on the door handles seldom works. I have to use multiple fingers to finally get it to recognize me.

Mine works sometimes, other times I have to hold my thumb on longer, and yet other times it just doesn't work for a day or two, so I end up touching the rear door handle instead (which seems to work whenever the front one doesn't).

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