New to the forum and new to looking at minivans. My question is the 2011 power sliding doors seem to open and close slowly. In bad weather here in the midwest I tend to get in and out of the car as fast as possible to get away from snow/rain etc. The idea of rain pooring into the van while waiting for the door to automatically close seems hard to accept. Once I get my son into his carseat I want the door to close quickly.
Is there a way to manually close or open the door faster? When I pulled on the door at the dealership it seemed to not want to allow a manual open.
New to the forum and new to looking at minivans. My question is the 2011 power sliding doors seem to open and close slowly. In bad weather here in the midwest I tend to get in and out of the car as fast as possible to get away from snow/rain etc. The idea of rain pooring into the van while waiting for the door to automatically close seems hard to accept. Once I get my son into his carseat I want the door to close quickly.
Is there a way to manually close or open the door faster? When I pulled on the door at the dealership it seemed to not want to allow a manual open.
Yes. You can turn off the power sliding doors. The switch for that is located on the lower left side of the dash where the control for the parking sensors and the power tail gate are. I have a touring elite so I am not sure if it is the same on other models. I hit that button by accident once and that is how I found out.
I was told by the salesman (go figure) that switch just deactivated the ability of the rear passengers to operate the power door. Similar to the power window lockout of rear windows. Sounds like it disengages the power slide mechanism, which is what I was looking for. Thank you, I will try it next time I am at the dealer.
Negative, it shuts down power to the motor. None of the switches will work. Not on the dash, not in the 2nd row.
I've found, if you manually open the door, sometimes its hard to get it started/moving. What I do to help ease the opening is (on the driver's side) pull on the handle with my left hand and pull back on the rear side of the door, to pull it out and away from the van, with my right hand. If I do this, it helps the door pull out of it's closed position much easier. It really seems like the van has a tight enough vacuum that won't release the sliding doors any easier.
I've not specifically tried it with my '11, but with my '03, it seemed like when you opened the door manually, you were merely slipping the door down the vinyl covered wire that opened and closed it. It didn't seem that anything was actually disengaged, it just seemed like it was powered off.
I can confirm bar's assertion that NONE of the switches work when you flip the door switch to off. It's not like the windows where the drive can still operate them.
If you are trying to get the power doors to open and close as easily as the manual doors on the LX, its not going to happen unless you do some serious disconnecting, which would pretty much make it a manual door full time. I don't think there is anyway of changing the speed at which they operate, and if there was, it would probably be for opening only. I remember watching the doors on a Ford Windstar open like a plane taking off on a runway, but they had a slow closing speed as well for safety. As for keeping the elements out, I would suggest only letting the door open part way, so that when it closes, it doesn't have far to go. If you really think about it, most kids could probably fit through a 12-15 inch opening or so.
I am not looking for super fast. But it looks like it is about 5-6 seconds to close. When you compare that to closing a swinging door it is probably 2-3 times longer.
It sounds like there is not a way to disengage the power slide feature. I was hoping there was, but guess not.
Uh, really? You've missed several posts about the power switch on the dash? You know, the one that disengages the power sliding door feature? Turn that switch off and the door operates as a normal non-powered sliding door.
Just to be sure how much drag there'd be, I JUST went out and tested it. Very little drag as the door slides open. Almost no drag as it slides shut. Easy one handed operation. I didn't try opening and closing from the inside though (didn't think about it until after coming back inside) so can't attest to it's ease. But I wouldn't imagine it being much different than from the outside.