Owner Claims $225K Bentley Did This To His Wife's Thumb

The Bentley Continental Flying Spur. It's a hand-built 6.0-liter W12 twin-turbo super sedan that also comes with a "Soft Close Power Latching Door System." It's a system so delicate it can apparently send you straight to the hospital.

I believe the most effective tool for shutting a door would be your hand. Than again, if you're super rich, I can see why manufacturers try make you feels special with the help of a few electric motors. Bentley doors are pretty heavy anyway. But would you expect the Germans to forget about safety?

Owner Claims $225K Bentley Did This To His Wife's Thumb

The following letter came from a Continental owner. We reached out to Bentley for comment, but haven't gotten a response so far (UPDATE: Bentley can't comment because the case is in litigation):

This is a warning to all owners of the Bentley Continental. The Bentley Continental features a “Soft Close” Power Latching Door System that engages the door just before it closes and uses powerful electric motors to pull the door shut and latch it automatically. This system does not appear to have a safety built into it to stop the power latching motor system from closing the door when a hand or finger is in the way. My wife’s Bentley crushed her thumb flatter than a pancake when the soft close power latching door system closed the door on it. To make matters worse, the door jammed and she was unable to open the door while her thumb was crushed in the door for several minutes. The pain was so unbearable that she eventually passed out. Luckily a man came to her rescue and opened the door. The man that opened the door stated that it took both his hands and all his strength to open the door. My wife was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and held for observation as she is 62 years old and her blood pressure was very high and she was in a state of shock not to mention the severe damage to her thumb. The doctors had to drill holes in her thumb to release the pressure and place a splint on it because it was shattered. My wife was in pain for many months after the accident, and her thumb is permanently deformed. However we feel lucky that she didn’t have a heart attack and die that day due to the extreme physical stress of the situation. Please be careful with your hands and fingers around the doors on the Bentley Continental when they shut, and be especially careful around small children so that they don’t get their hands crushed in the doors.

Here's how the system works, locking the door for a few seconds:

And here's the result of the accident:

Owner Claims $225K Bentley Did This To His Wife's Thumb


In response to forum members wishing his wife well, he added:

Thank you guys. We are really worried about small children on something like this. I tried carrots and all kinds of stuff and the door just closes on them chopping them in half. When our grandson is around the car we are extra careful. As some have stated here, our S Class Mercedes had the same feature, but maybe they have some kind of safety built in it, I don't know. If this thing did that to my wife's hand, I don't want to think about what it could do to a child's hand.

We will let you know as soon as we get a response from Bentley.

Photo credit: M 93