wrapped door handles + freezing temperatures = nightmare

[Marius A]

Here's a 20/20 hindsight tip to everyone who lives in cold climates.
My colleague had issues getting his door handles to work today, we had a few negative degrees Celsius and it rained a lot last night. He had to knock on the handles for a bit before they loosened.

Me on the other hand, I've wrapped the entire car in a lovely sky blue vinyl, and have the same on my door handles.
I spent 7 minutes (after pre-heating my car) before I managed to finally open the rear-right passenger door. The door handle would not go back on its own. From there I managed to open the driver's door from the inside, and got into my car that way. A 25 minute drive later and I still couldn't open any other door handles than the rear, right side. So think about that before you wrap your handles. You get a very tiny gap, so you might not even get a credit card in between there.

 

[Sclew]

Pretty sure this was an issue without wraps either

 

[duanra]

Last winter I used to carry a hair dryer. I really helped when I was in reach of a plug.

 

[M3FNATIK]

damn, all Tesla needs to do is release heated door handles

 

[SMAlset]

If I can find the post someone made with a video of preheating the Model 3 all the way at high temp, I’ll come back and add the link. But if you set the preheat to high on your app, it kicks the fan on high as well and only then does it apparently push cabin heating out through the door handle gaps to help defrost the handles. The guy said any setting less and it doesn’t do that. In the video the guy added light weight christmas tinsel over the car’s door handle and you can see when it moves. Very helpful being able to visualize this.

Anyway suggest people try the high setting and see if that helps. Not cold enough here to really test out on a frozen door handle.

 

[SMAlset]

Ah found it, video in post by CMoZ (Videos of Test Ride in Cybertruck)

Here’s the YT video:

 

[Marius A]

If I can find the post someone made with a video of preheating the Model 3 all the way at high temp, I’ll come back and add the link. But if you set the preheat to high on your app, it kicks the fan on high as well and only then does it apparently push cabin heating out through the door handle gaps to help defrost the handles. The guy said any setting less and it doesn’t do that. In the video the guy added light weight christmas tinsel over the car’s door handle and you can see when it moves. Very helpful being able to visualize this.

Anyway suggest people try the high setting and see if that helps. Not cold enough here to really test out on a frozen door handle.

Thanks for the tip. I struggled a lot more than my colleague did, but we live nearer water so that might account for it.
That make it doubly important to fix my connection issues, so I can pre-hest the car.

 

[Marius A]

Thanks for the tip. I struggled a lot more than my colleague did, but we live nearer water so that might account for it.
That make it doubly important to fix my connection issues, so I can pre-hest the car.

So this is my experience from today, it's clear and -5 degrees Celsius:
I pre-heated the car for 15 minutes using the defrost function. When I went to unlock my car only 2 out of 4 doors would open; left back and right front. The ice at the bottom of the rear window was almost impossible to get off the vinyl wrap, had to get a hair drier.

I think the vinyl adds sone additional freezing issues. The two spor handles that were functional where cold to the touch, but not freezing. The other two were completely frozen, and after driving for 20 minutes I still had to "knock them loose". They wouldn't go back to the normal position by themselves, I had to force them back.

The vinyl wrap on my car goes around the entire handle, I think that adds some spacing issues, and probably hinders hot air from getting out.
I will make new posts as the winter progresses.
Still don't regret the wrap, but I think it's useful to inform others, no?