Our 2015 Sedona SX is having a problem with the power sliding door. So far three times over night. The passenger side sliding door will suddenly open. Leaving the vehicle open to the elements. Of coarse this would have to happen when it was snowing once and the last time it was raining. We have not taken it back to the dealer yet. But I wanted to see if anyone has had this happen or has heard of this issue and what could be causing it. It is only happening to the one door. So the odds of it being a freak thing is pretty slim.
It's weird and challenging. So far non of us having the same issue. But if that happen to me, Yes. I'll take it to the Dealer but for the meantime I need to examine how it happen and what is the culprit. Few things to isolate the issue first. There are at least 5 switches to open the sliding doors automatically. One is the overhead switch, two is the switch near the door itself, three the interior sliding door handle, four the exterior door handle and lastly from the FOB. The lease possible cause is the switch from the door because you have to press it and the clearance of contact switch is a bit far compare to FOB. Take note of the FOB you are using, inspect if there's unusual things on it or recently been splash by water. In that case, use the other FOB to lock the car. Take note also not to combine your phone and FOB in one pocket. The FOB will not work or may cause intermittent interferences such your issue. Inspect the overhead switches too. Make sure it has enough clearance to the switch contact point. If symptoms persist, try of disable for the meantime the automatic doors switch located on the overhead to make the car close at all times. Good luck Buddy!
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I will check the items you mentioned. One more bit of information that seemed odd to me. I have video footage of two of the instances. One of them had the parking lights flash or what ever it is that they normally do when you open the doors. But last nights instance had no lights activate. The door just magically opened. Not only that but the door would not respond to the normal pull of the handle to close it. It had to be manually closed by pulling the handle out and sliding the door. I am not sure if that was the case with the previous times or not. But I just thought I would provide as much info as possible. Any thoughts on what would not cause the lights to trigger? I was thinking perhaps the safety mechanism for when a hand or some other object gets in the way of the closing door. Perhaps there is an adjustment on whatever tells that that the door is fully closed. What are the odds that cell phone interference would open the same door each time?
Edit: I just tested opening the door with and without the vehicle locked. When it is locked the lights flash when opening the door. But no flash when the doors are unlocked. We typically do not lock then in our driveway.
James, according to my car experience. When you open the doors when it flashes means that you previously lock the doors. Unlocking it with FOB or pulling the handle it normally flashes and give a two tone beeps. On the other hand when open the doors without flashes simply means that the car is unlock. For the meantime. I would suggest to reset the system or let your battery fully charge again and replace. Some reference is in the manual things to avoid in power doors operation. Manual pages 4/30-31.
Thank you again, Spicy. I will ask my wife to bring the manual inside tonight. It is not available online if I am not mistaken.
Snitt,
We have not tried that. The problem is so random and spread apart in time. That there is no way to do this effectively. These incidents where all at least a month apart. Hopefully I will get some time this weekend to look at some of the variables more closely.
I am hoping the issue will resolve in time and will be the minor one. As for now, all we have is the manual and the actual normal operation information that we can share. Your case is interesting and we are all waiting on how it got fixed. Good luck Buddy and Thanks for sharing to us! Enjoy and safe driving!
We received a voluntary service campaign notice regarding the drum gear in the release actuator for the sliding doors. That could be the cause of this issue! We will be bringing it in next week when we have some other unrelated work done.
FYI
There is no number or code in the letter for the service campaign.
Our Sedona has done the same thing at least six times now. In March, I took it right to the KIA Dealership when I came out of Wal-Mart to find our driver's side door wide open again. The service writer, Chris, at Beck & Masten KIA in Tomball gave me a lecture on how to use the key fob - an insult since we've used key fobs since the early 90's. He would not even schedule service because, in his words, "I wouldn't know what to tell them." Yesterday, when I was talking with Sean Samuels the New-Car Manager, he hung up on me when I asked him to repeat to my husband what he had just told me.
KIA Corporate told me to try taking it to another dealership, but I've called others and they, too, told me that they had never heard of something like this. Our problem is that we are both disabled and we keep our motorized scooters in our Sedona - we're afraid that someone will steal them!
We haven't even received a service campaign notice.
"
CathiD I hear you on that, sadly but don't loose hope that issue will resolve soon. Dealership and their service department has all been dependent on the KIA Corp. They don't have the real experience what and how the car acts like along the way. They are master how to sell and to market but the rest KIA Corporate has the key and will be followed the aftermarket service. Remember a Service Campaign or Recall came from KIA not from Dealerships or their Service Department. Raise your case directly calling or emailing KIA Customer Service where you should do that if the issue is alarming and unsafe. Hope you'll get a good response soon.
My sympathies, James. Ours does the same thing but we always lock our doors, no matter where we are. I did take ours to the dealership right after I came out of Wal-Mart and found it wide open. Chris Briggs at Beck & Masten KIA first gave me a two-syllable-word tutorial on how to use a key fob. Then he refused to schedule service, his reason being that he "wouldn't know how to tell the guys in service what is wrong." I next spoke with Sean Samuels, the New Car Mgr., which was even less successful. He hung up on me when I asked him to repeat his comments to my husband. He said that theirs is a new dealership and does not have the ability to deal with "complex" issues. He wants me to take it across town to another dealership - any dealership other than theirs. The bad part of that is that I cannot drive very far - I'm disabled - and even if I took it across town, I can't sit very long. That is why we bought this car (our 2nd) in the first place. It's nearby and convenient. Mr. Samuels may be new to his job but the dealership's been there for a long time. I hope you'll have better luck with yours.
We can't identify what is causing our doors to open - we've wondered if it's picking up on some other units in the area, although it did happen in our driveway a couple times. If you get an answer, please let me know.
Did your problem resolve itself after they did the work outlined in the service bulletin? If so, would you please let me know. We've been stuck over this, and as you said, we never know when it will happen. Our dealership has been of less than no assistance and we're stuck with a car that we can't use in case the door opens.
I hope some of the fellow affected by the TSB where already start changing the door actuators. Mine, needless to say, the Service Dept from my Dealership changed it although I didn't experience any problem with my doors. So far, it's good to prevent the future occurrence of the problem.
We are now having issues with the driver side sliding door after the new parts where installed. So the recall fixed the passenger side door. But now the driver side is randomly saying it is open when it is closed. I believe as a result this is draining our battery. We have been stranded 3 times now. The dealer is not being very helpful with it either. They claim they will need several days to troubleshoot and we will need to rent a vehicle on our own dime. Just terrible.
You will be having hard time to isolate that intermittent problem. You need to have a fully charge battery in order to check parasitic draws if any. This is one reason batteries drained. It happen much more often in cold season. Basically you are dealing between Sliding Door and Battery issue. 1) To start with, first get a reliable electronic battery charger(It will not help if battery itself is defective/I agree that if battery fully drained, your lucky to revive it 100% working.) and I recommend to get a new good and compatible battery with high CCA or have it replaced from the Dealer. 2) After your power supply was stabilized, take note of battery voltage and start to isolate all automatic doors by turning OFF the automatic sliding doors/tailgate(a switch from overhead). By then you will conduct a series of observations. By next morning, before you start your car. Take note of battery voltage. If the reading is almost the same, meaning your fine. An overnight wait can tell if battery is draining or not. Now, try to turn ON the automatic doors. Check it after hours to 4 hours. If nothing change to the battery voltage reading, your just fine. Try for another overnight and do the same way. If the result of the battery reading is getting low or lower than the previous reading then, try to suspect there's a problem in one of the three automatic door. Try to purchased a good quality battery voltage monitor. Find the attached sample of it. It will help you somehow. Keep warm and good-luck!
Thank you for the idea of turning off the automatic doors. However the voltage meter you are referring to will only work with the ignition on. Since the cigarette lighters on not functional with the ignition off. So that is not useful in this case. Am I missing something? Since this problem is random the idea of testing for drain every 4 hours would be of limited utility anyway. Since we can go a week and a half without incident. Then suddenly fully dead battery. I do believe it is related to the door issue. However I am not knowledgeable as to what would drain the battery because of this. We have never come out to the van and saw the interior lights on. So I don't think it is that. I was wondering if perhaps the door closing motor is coming on trying to close the door. But that is just a guess. We decided to call the dealers bluff and rented a vehicle for 3 days. Now they don't have that as an excuse anymore. I believe the mechanic who was assigned to the ticket simply did not know how to troubleshoot the door issue. Therefor it sat untouched all day. Supposedly the shop manage will be assigned to it now. fingers are crossed.
We've been having the exact same issue with our 2015 Sedona SXL. The passenger-side sliding door has been opening when we're not around (3x now) and we've had the battery run down to completely dead twice. The door wasn't open either time the battery died.
The van's been into the service department twice. The first time they replaced the alternator, the second time they shrugged and said they couldn't find anything wrong. I've got an appointment in a few weeks for them to keep it for several days for testing. I'm going to print out this thread and show them that it's more than just me with the problem.
From what I'm reading, though, no one has resolved the issue, correct? Replacing the drum gear seems to have fixed it, but not confirmed? It's hard to "confirm" a fix to an intermittent problem...
For us the dealer does not know what else to do. So they are going to replace the battery. It has drained down 6 times now so it is shot anyway. Our rear hatch opened last night and killed the battery again. I don't know if that was a fluke coincidence or related to the issue. But there is supposed to be a timer that kills the lights in such an event. I wonder why that is not kicking in. They are claiming they cant adjust the sliding door if they are unable to reproduce the issue. As that may cause further issues. But we do get the door open light for the sliding door on occasion when driving. It is very frustrating not knowing where the issue is.
This issue has got to be incredibly frustrating. Is there any chance you are accidently triggering the key fob in your pocket? Basically just like butt dialing someone on your cell phone. The reason I ask is this sort of happened to me a couple times. I happened to be in the car at the time, but one of side doors started opening without any buttons inside the vehicle being pushed. I noticed the key was at a strange position in my pocket causing it to trigger. The keys seem to trigger too easily for my taste.
I have not had the exact problem that the OP presented here, but have had a sliding door problem that may be caused by something similar to what is causing the magical door-opening phenom. My problem is that if I start the sliding door closing and try to start the engine while it is moving it will either stop opening, reopen, or close most of the way, but not all the way. In each case I have to open the door back up and then close it again in order for the DIC to indicate that the door is closed and not bug me about it if I try to drive off. This does not happen all the time, but most of the time, and I can make it happen about 7 or 8 times out of 10 tries. I certainly hope that someone gets an answer to this and passes it along to the forum.
I've had this issue too. Often times I'll strap my son into his car seat and press the button to start closing the sliding door (the button located in the second row), then I'll go get in the front seat and start the car while the door is closing. Just about every time, after I press the ignition button the sliding door will start to re-open and will slide about a foot before closing again. I've gotten used to it, but you would think that a vehicle (especially at the price of an SX) would be able to do both at the same time.
I've also experienced similar dead battery issues that others in this thread have, though I'm still not sure of the reason. My doors do not open on their own (thankfully).
IMO, doing those task at the same time ( opening the door and the same time starting the car) will always or not possibly causing the problem. A significant voltage drop (when starting the car) in the system will interfere the operation of the ECU which holds the program of opening or closing or any automatic mechanism in the car. As if it need stable voltage to make ECU process the program. Otherwise, it will reset. There might a possibility in the long run that the ECU program will get corrupt or damage the ECU itself.
After further tests on our van, after reviewing this thread (and one other), and in consultation with Kia Canada, our dealership has decided to replace the "electric door module". Not quite sure what this is, but it seems to be an electronics controller associated with the doors. It's a unit that's not available right now, with a 4-6 week back-order time. I guess we hold our breath hoping the battery doesn't die in that period, and the doors don't magically open.
I like the idea about waiting for the doors to fully close before starting the van. This is something we occasionally don't do (kids!) but I'll make sure everyone knows it's a potential cause of the door/battery problem and to make sure the doors are closed before starting the vehicle.
I have had this issue every time I start the car while the sliding door is closing. And the battery drained twice, first time after a week of standing in my driveway, second time after less then 48 hours. I've also had the doors opened magically, but then the dealer performed the TSB related to this issue and it fixed the problem. The battery drain is the most annoying and scary problem. I have to travel soon for business with the family of 3 kids and I am afraid to get stuck at the hotel's parking lot with screaming kids... Would the portable battery charger be a good solution while traveling???
I have not had any issue with the battery dying but every time (no exaggeration) the door(s) are in the process of closing and I start the car, the doors will reopen about halfway then re-close or if the doors were mostly closed when I start the car, I hear the doors unlatch but not actually open and the door ajar light does not come on but it is obvious that the door is not latched.
There have also been a handful of times where I wake up to an open door in my driveway. Luckily there hasn't been a snowstorm in Charlotte since the 90's.
Today I had the dealership perform repair work in accordance with TSB BOD 165.
The resolution was to replace the sliding door drive units. These are part numbers:
83810-A9000FFF and 83820-A90000FFF
So far it seems to have fixed the problem.
The closing door will still hesitate when the car is being started but will quickly resume closing.
The door is no longer re-opening. As for the random open door when I wake up, only time will tell if that is fixed.
Hope this helps.
I'm bumping this older thread to see if anyone with the mystery sliding doors problem ever figured out a clear diagnosis/solve. Our minivan (2008 model) just developed this same problem a couple days ago. Doors have opened on their own 4 times now in the past 2-3 days. We keep the interior lights turned fully off, so have not had battery problems as a result yet, but it's still annoying and will eventually lead to small stuff getting stolen out of the car or rain damage when it opens randomly.
It's definitely not us being stupid about the fobs, because we've used them without problem for 10 years now, and also because it's often happening at night when we're asleep and nowhere near the fobs.
Any ideas? Seems like maybe a short somewhere (which seems hard to track down)?
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