Very scary thing happened to me this past weekend.

I took off Traction Control and took a slide around the corner, having some fun.

I got too far into the slide and then stupidly overcorrected....very scary. Car went Hard Left, Hard Right, whipping back and forth...

I hit the brakes not far from a tree right in front of me. Car slammed to a stop....

And my drivers side door FLEW open, forward momentum carried it as far as it would go, and it made a horrid creaking sound.

When I got out to investigate, I found that the door had basically opened so far that it dented itself and chipped a piece of metal/paint. I don't have a picture but try to imagine the exterior portion of your door, at the hinge, going back so far into the car when the door opens wide that it hits another piece of metal and crunches a little while also chipping.

The net result is a horrible creaking when I open my door, which upon inspection reveals the center bolt "moving" each time the door opens and closes...and it opens slightly wider than it should....and it doesn't look entirely even although it closes just fine.

SO on to the point....I can't for the life of me figure out what happened. I am fairly certain that it wasn't that I forgot to close my door - it was at night so there's no way I could've missed my cockpit door-open light, especially since I was eyeballing it waiting for Traction Control to go off.

And even if I didn't close it completely...I tried testing a partially closed door and seeing if I could tug it open and I can't. I've always assumed that the "half-closed" door would still stay shut as a safety feature.

Anyone else have this happen? and more to the point, how should I pursue this with the dealer? I did a search and didn't see anyone else have this happen, but now I'm terrified that there's a defect and feel like somehow they'll blame this on me.

 

I haven't had any problems with mine, but I'm very interested in seeing what you find out about what happened in your case.

 

I know i've read that some place else on another forum...i'll look for it and try and find it...but you're not the first person this has happend to...at least i don't think..

 

The least you could do is to go to the dealership and have them test the drivers side door. It's possible that under certain conditions it may have released if it was defective. It shouldn't have though. The dealer should be able to check out the pins and locking mechanisms. But I've never heard of this happening before.

 

go check it out at the dealership... glad your safe. be more careful next time yah? would've been a lot worse if u hit the tree.

maybe another recall?

 

I think its a defect should be covered.

 

Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick, that ain't right. I'm glad that you are alright and that noone got hurt or any such thing so that's all good.

First, I have read nothing like this on the forum before. I have read some people say that their doors were misadjusted at the factory that allowed a little free play, and they were able to have things tightened up a bit with no problems from the dealer. Their symptoms were a door that would sort of rattle and creak around corners at semi-low speeds. Did your car ever do this because maybe your door just wasn't tight enough and allowed excessive play? However, I have heard noone say anything about doors flying open at speed. Do a search maybe it's there. I just haven't read it.

Second, I doubt that you will hear many stories like this because few people have put the lateral forces on their 8s the way that you did. It's good that the 8 is in the sub-ten percent for rollover because your overcorrection in a slide which rapidly unloaded the springs on one side and loaded up the other side is the number one way to roll a car . . . even a sedan.

However, that said, the door should NEVER NEVER NEVER fly open like that. It is the A number one rule of automobiles and it is why cars with doors opening in the center got the name "suicide doors" in the first place. Thank God for good buckets and safety belts. In the days of mid sixties Lincolns one held himself in the seat often by leaning against the door and putting his arm up on the bench seat back. It was different world then.

I would also like to say that no matter what you were doing with the car, I cannot believe that this could in any way be your fault. I also believe that with the door ajar light on the dash being extinguished, and I agree that you would have instantly recognized that the light was on especially at night, that door was as seurely shut as you could make it.

If I were you, I would take the car to the dealer and just tell them the story you just told us. Rapid corrections happen in every day driving due to emergencies to avoid animals or other cars and over corrections happen fairly often when those manuevers are required. The door should never have flown open so it is on Mazda to fix all of the damage. I also think that your experience alone might be enough to send Mazda engineers running around like beheaded chickens trying to figure out a fix for this. Best of Luck.

 

Is it possible you hit/bumped the door handle during the frenetic over correction and so forth? I know I've managed to accidentally turn indicators and so forth on so would it have been possible that your hand somehow interacted with the door handle when you came to the abrupt stop?

 

This has not happend to me...thankfully. I will be sure to watch out and make sure my doors are safely locked and shut all the way next time i decide to have some fun...

 

Scary.. I just parked my 8 after a 120 mph mountian drive home !!


Hate to think of the door flying open then

 

Thanks as always for being supportive. I will be contacting the dealership pronto to discuss this.

To address a few of the comments that came up:

The more I think about it the more I'm positive I didn't leave my door open. Wouldn't the dome-light in the car also still be on if that were the case? Not sure but I'm testing that tonight just to cover my bases.

My FIRST instinct was to think that I had hit the door handle...but honestly my hands were on the wheel and were turning rapidly from left to right...meaning I would have hit the handle up-down which would have done nothing except really hurt.

Plus I was gripping the wheel like a madman (I think my nails stuck into it, lol) so there's no way I could be near the door handle. For that to happen my hands would have had to come off the wheel and the situation may have gotten worse. I can't see myself not noticing that, even though I was panicked.

I also took mental inventory and I had no sensation in my hand of bumping or hitting anything. The whole thing was perplexing. The girl I'm seeing was in the passenger seat and she handled it pretty well but concurred with me that she can't see any way that door could have opened because of anything I did. She's an attorney so she had an interesting perspective on this as well.

Anyway the great news is no one was hurt, I was belted in, never felt at risk of flying out the door, and I'll share with you whatever I find from dealership.

Oh yeah and I haven't turned Traction Control Off since All those threads I see about people needing to know what they're doing before sliding out the tail of the car were spot-on. TAKE THEIR ADVICE PEOPLE, take a driving class or don't screw with it. You may KNOW that you're not supposed to overcorrect on a slide, as I do, but good luck telling your instincts that before they take over.

 

It's still possible you hit the door handle. With the steering corrections you described, you would have been doing the hand-over-hand thing on the wheel. In an emergency it's amazing how far out those hands go. When I was taking Skip Barber classes, their bmw's had all lost their rear view mirrors to students flailing hands.

I'm not saying you did hit the door handle, just that it's a possibility even if you don't remember.

Did you have your doors locked by any chance?

Keep us posted.
--Dave.

 

Nope, doors weren't locked. Your point is well taken but with the velocity of hand movement, hitting that door handle would be something I would've felt....at least I hope so. Adrenaline can do weird things to you.

UPDATE: Called dealership. Spoke to typical Miami-area unfriendly Service rep. Told him my door flew open when I was taking a turn, and there is some damage to the hinge and denting/paint chipping on the door. He said they could recommend some body shops.

So I paused and then asked "So the body shops also do warranty work?" and he said "No".

Me: "OK let me back up here. The door flew open while I was driving. I'll need you guys to look at it and fix it. There may be a defective part"

Him: "Uh ok well that's a different story uh you can bring it in and we'll take a look at it"

Me: "Do I need an appointment?"

Him: "Uh no just bring it in. Or bring it to another dealership if there's one closer to you"


*sigh* This is gonna be fun.

 

ALso, if the door was not securely latched, those rolling G-forces back and forth could have jimmied it open. It's more likely you hit the handle by mitsake and dont recall it (has happened to me before) than that, but it's always a chance.

 

Don't you have to PULL the handle to open the door, not PUSH it in? I can't envision how one could "hit" the handle and cause the door to open.

 

Your sleeve could get hooked around the handle and pull on it, your finger could go under the handle, your elbow could lever in from the top and push it out...

When hands and bodyparts are flailing around there's really not much that can't happen.

 

ALWAYS lock your door before you begin driving. When you "lock" the door you are actually locking the closure mechanism. The door is less likely to inadvertently open in the event of an impact, or other unexpected incident. It's also a security issue; you could get jacked at an intersection or some other location.

I don't think your door was correctly closed, or you may have grabbed the latch when you fought to regain control of the car.

I took my 8 up to some very tight mountain roads on the second day that I had it. This was as much to familiarize myself with the car in a deserted, safe setting as for entertainment. I was pulling some serious low speed G's in the switchbacks. I got the tail way out in one corner, powered out to the next, got hard on the brakes, and again powered out, curve after curve for miles on end.

I never got a creak out the car's body structure. No flex. One reason the car is so predictable and easy to drive at the limit is because it's body structure is so stiff. I don't think there's a fundamental problem with the car.

Maybe you have a defective latch, or, with all due respect, it's operator error.

 

We've had a few cases over here where guys have had the interior light come on while cornering. It happened to Storm (California member) too......I had the interior light come on for me too, the kids had gotten in thru the passenger doors and 5 miles later (at night) a bloody light show goes off in the cabin....most disconcerting. I got out and checked the passenger doors, open and close them, and the same thing happens again a mile down the freeway. Stop again, slam the doors......hasn't happened in the last 3 months! The doors can obviously close enough to kill the light, but not fully latch. Good luck with the repair.....

Gomez.