Neigbour with a Fabia Mk4 called me recently, his drivers door and the rear (right) passenger doors were partly open with what looked like a stainless steel rod jamming the two doors in their partly open/closed positions, to make a long story short, it was the door umbrella that apparently had shot out somehow or other and jammed the two doors, he had partially opened the back door to let his dog out I think and had let his own door partially open, or something like that. The car was still under warranty so the dealer sent someone out and he told me they found that the door umbrella had somehow popped out of its recess in the front door and jammed the two doors. Wonder does the 3 year warranty cover the umbrella as well!!.

I very recently got a gift of one of those Skoda (doppler) umbrellas which the wife uses, it has a release button on the handle but I can't figure out how the umbrella could open with most of it still inside the door recess even with the button pressed, seems a unusual occurance, havn't seen any reference to this behaviour before anywhere.

On most of the automatic umbrellas I've seen, the shaft extends first - which appears to have happened in this case.