Hiding

sliding door BEFORE

NEW KIND OF SLIDING DOOR MECHANISM Note how unnoticeably the sliding door opens – smoothly, almost noiselessly, giving no indication from the outside of being a sliding door until it opens. A fully functional prototype of the new Edscha system promises new freedoms for car designers and drivers.

WENT CLICK

At this point the catch pin has received the passive roller car- rier. The door is now securely guided to the end of the opening travel distance.

Aconventional sliding door is really more of a “push door” – it takes strong arms to get it moving; it often

can be heard streets away as it slides heavily and slams shut, and its guide rail along the fender is the first thing that draws dirt, rust and design criticisms. For these reasons, the sliding door has gained acceptance to date mainly in commercially used vans and their derivatives aimed at large families.

And yet the sliding door has potentially enormous advantages for the users of pure- bred cars too, from compacts to luxury limou- sines: it provides the easiest way of getting into a car – even in the tightest parking spa- ces. In pursuit of new customer benefits, more and more carmakers are thus seeking solutions to the image problems that the sliding door suffers from. And an entirely new solution is now offered to them by Edscha.

PRESENTABLY INVISIBLE

“Our system will open all doors wide to the slide concept.” Klaus Ruigrok van de Werve, Product Manager Sliding Doors in the Hinge Systems Division and co-inventor of the con- cept, is convinced of that. In spring 2001, Ruigrok (at the time still with invenio, the engineering service providers) and his team began experimenting with telescoping rails, pantographs and swiveling arms: “I just couldn’t see why we shouldn’t succeed in eliminating the drawbacks of the sliding door.” The solution they found is as simple as it is ingenious (see box on right) – and

already patented. As it features a whole range of advantages over conventional systems, there’s only enough space here to name the most important ones:

■With the Edscha system, vehicle design is no longer subject to the limitations resulting from external guide rails. The sole externally visible indication of the door technology is a round button in the fender, about the size of a parking sensor.

■The width of the door opening is no longer limited by overall vehicle length; previously this criterion ruled out the use of sliding doors in vehicles with a short overhang. With the Edscha system, the door now can be opened across its entire width – even beyond the rear end of the vehicle if desired.

■As the guide rail lies entirely within the vehicle, and moreover can be made to run straight, the system is appreciably more re- sistant to wear, has much closer tolerances and is thus sturdier than conventional sliding doors. A double door seal is now also possible.

■Technical details additionally enhance com- fort: a spring assembly, for example, saves the user a great deal of effort opening the door.

■Not least of all, the concept has significant advantages also for production. Although the production sliding door à la Edscha would cost roughly the same as conventional systems, it still means good money to the OEM: as the number of subassemblies declines, bodyshell complexity also is appre- ciably reduced.

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