Mew

New Member
OK, so there are a lot of posts on tailgates not opening and a lot of theories around the method to open them. I had one of these troublesome doors so thought I would get to the bottom of the problem.

First thing to do is get into the load space which means climbing in there. Now pull the door trim off by pulling from the top. There are 4 screws at the bottom which may be inaccessible until the door is open.

Once off inside the door you will see a plug on the bottom of the lock assembly, remove this by pushing the locking mechanism in and pulling down.
[GALLERY=]
Plug.png
[/GALLERY]
Now armed with a voltmeter set to read 12v connect it to the connections in the plug, bits of wire may help here. Then you will need to go round to the door handle outside but still be able to see the voltmeter reading. Operating the handle you should see a momentary 12v appear and then go back to 0v. If you do the wiring to the latch is OK, if not then you will need to find the fault elsewhere.

To get the latch assembly out you need to get the door open but the pic below shows one screw, circled in red, you need to remove first. Also remove the 2 plugs.
[GALLERY=]
screw.png
[/GALLERY]
This pic shows the other side of the assembly.
[GALLERY=]
actuator.png
[/GALLERY]
With the screw removed what you need to do is pull the plastic cover, arrowed in red, up far enough to be able to pull the lever circled down and the door should open. It is fairly brutal but the only way! Beware if your window won’t go down as it will catch on the surround, luckily for me I could lower the window.

Once the door is open you can undo the 4 screws, 2 cross head and 2 TORX, the latch assembly should come out now, but be aware the cables are on a clip going over the top of the assembly but the clip can be released with a pair of pliers through the top hole in the door.

With the assembly out detach the solenoid from the latch by twisting the arm out.

You can then undo the 4 screws and see what is inside, just a motor and a screw gear. All looked ok everything moved and was not seized, put it back together and plugged it into the white plug. Tried the door latch and it worked! There is not much else that can go wrong except for a kaput motor.
Reassembly and fitting is just the reverse, just make sure the wiring around the top of the assembly does not get trapped when refitting.

This whole job took about an hour to do.
Thanks for reading, sorry it was so long but hope it helps someone.

Mew
 
Fantastic! Thank you so much for this perfect description to get the door open. I had managed to get as far as opening up the rear panel inside the load space but couldn't see a way to get at the latch. Will try this tomorrow. Many thanks.
 
OK, so there are a lot of posts on tailgates not opening and a lot of theories around the method to open them. I had one of these troublesome doors so thought I would get to the bottom of the problem.

First thing to do is get into the load space which means climbing in there. Now pull the door trim off by pulling from the top. There are 4 screws at the bottom which may be inaccessible until the door is open.

Once off inside the door you will see a plug on the bottom of the lock assembly, remove this by pushing the locking mechanism in and pulling down.
[GALLERY=]View attachment 99137 [/GALLERY]
Now armed with a voltmeter set to read 12v connect it to the connections in the plug, bits of wire may help here. Then you will need to go round to the door handle outside but still be able to see the voltmeter reading. Operating the handle you should see a momentary 12v appear and then go back to 0v. If you do the wiring to the latch is OK, if not then you will need to find the fault elsewhere.

To get the latch assembly out you need to get the door open but the pic below shows one screw, circled in red, you need to remove first. Also remove the 2 plugs.
[GALLERY=]View attachment 99139 [/GALLERY]
This pic shows the other side of the assembly.
[GALLERY=]View attachment 99138 [/GALLERY]
With the screw removed what you need to do is pull the plastic cover, arrowed in red, up far enough to be able to pull the lever circled down and the door should open. It is fairly brutal but the only way! Beware if your window won’t go down as it will catch on the surround, luckily for me I could lower the window.

Once the door is open you can undo the 4 screws, 2 cross head and 2 TORX, the latch assembly should come out now, but be aware the cables are on a clip going over the top of the assembly but the clip can be released with a pair of pliers through the top hole in the door.

With the assembly out detach the solenoid from the latch by twisting the arm out.

You can then undo the 4 screws and see what is inside, just a motor and a screw gear. All looked ok everything moved and was not seized, put it back together and plugged it into the white plug. Tried the door latch and it worked! There is not much else that can go wrong except for a kaput motor.
Reassembly and fitting is just the reverse, just make sure the wiring around the top of the assembly does not get trapped when refitting.

This whole job took about an hour to do.
Thanks for reading, sorry it was so long but hope it helps someone.

Mew
Thanks for the great write up. After I got the door open I discovered the brass bush between the actuator and the lock was missing so the just separated. A search for it failed so I used a small nut, some glue and electric tame for composite strength. Worked a treat. Door is perfect again..................
 
OK, so there are a lot of posts on tailgates not opening and a lot of theories around the method to open them. I had one of these troublesome doors so thought I would get to the bottom of the problem.

First thing to do is get into the load space which means climbing in there. Now pull the door trim off by pulling from the top. There are 4 screws at the bottom which may be inaccessible until the door is open.

Once off inside the door you will see a plug on the bottom of the lock assembly, remove this by pushing the locking mechanism in and pulling down.
[GALLERY=]View attachment 99137 [/GALLERY]
Now armed with a voltmeter set to read 12v connect it to the connections in the plug, bits of wire may help here. Then you will need to go round to the door handle outside but still be able to see the voltmeter reading. Operating the handle you should see a momentary 12v appear and then go back to 0v. If you do the wiring to the latch is OK, if not then you will need to find the fault elsewhere.

To get the latch assembly out you need to get the door open but the pic below shows one screw, circled in red, you need to remove first. Also remove the 2 plugs.
[GALLERY=]View attachment 99139 [/GALLERY]
This pic shows the other side of the assembly.
[GALLERY=]View attachment 99138 [/GALLERY]
With the screw removed what you need to do is pull the plastic cover, arrowed in red, up far enough to be able to pull the lever circled down and the door should open. It is fairly brutal but the only way! Beware if your window won’t go down as it will catch on the surround, luckily for me I could lower the window.

Once the door is open you can undo the 4 screws, 2 cross head and 2 TORX, the latch assembly should come out now, but be aware the cables are on a clip going over the top of the assembly but the clip can be released with a pair of pliers through the top hole in the door.

With the assembly out detach the solenoid from the latch by twisting the arm out.

You can then undo the 4 screws and see what is inside, just a motor and a screw gear. All looked ok everything moved and was not seized, put it back together and plugged it into the white plug. Tried the door latch and it worked! There is not much else that can go wrong except for a kaput motor.
Reassembly and fitting is just the reverse, just make sure the wiring around the top of the assembly does not get trapped when refitting.

This whole job took about an hour to do.
Thanks for reading, sorry it was so long but hope it helps someone.

Mew
 
OK, so there are a lot of posts on tailgates not opening and a lot of theories around the method to open them. I had one of these troublesome doors so thought I would get to the bottom of the problem.

First thing to do is get into the load space which means climbing in there. Now pull the door trim off by pulling from the top. There are 4 screws at the bottom which may be inaccessible until the door is open.

Once off inside the door you will see a plug on the bottom of the lock assembly, remove this by pushing the locking mechanism in and pulling down.
[GALLERY=]View attachment 99137 [/GALLERY]
Now armed with a voltmeter set to read 12v connect it to the connections in the plug, bits of wire may help here. Then you will need to go round to the door handle outside but still be able to see the voltmeter reading. Operating the handle you should see a momentary 12v appear and then go back to 0v. If you do the wiring to the latch is OK, if not then you will need to find the fault elsewhere.

To get the latch assembly out you need to get the door open but the pic below shows one screw, circled in red, you need to remove first. Also remove the 2 plugs.
[GALLERY=]View attachment 99139 [/GALLERY]
This pic shows the other side of the assembly.
[GALLERY=]View attachment 99138 [/GALLERY]
With the screw removed what you need to do is pull the plastic cover, arrowed in red, up far enough to be able to pull the lever circled down and the door should open. It is fairly brutal but the only way! Beware if your window won’t go down as it will catch on the surround, luckily for me I could lower the window.

Once the door is open you can undo the 4 screws, 2 cross head and 2 TORX, the latch assembly should come out now, but be aware the cables are on a clip going over the top of the assembly but the clip can be released with a pair of pliers through the top hole in the door.

With the assembly out detach the solenoid from the latch by twisting the arm out.

You can then undo the 4 screws and see what is inside, just a motor and a screw gear. All looked ok everything moved and was not seized, put it back together and plugged it into the white plug. Tried the door latch and it worked! There is not much else that can go wrong except for a kaput motor.
Reassembly and fitting is just the reverse, just make sure the wiring around the top of the assembly does not get trapped when refitting.

This whole job took about an hour to do.
Thanks for reading, sorry it was so long but hope it helps someone.

Mew
 
It seems as if the circled pin is missing in my case, it feels hollow where the circled pin should be. The door still not open.
 
Hi from Nifty in Australia,
Happy New Year 2022,
This post is awesome, I'm much more confident now, though I was instantly freaked out from first in rear space to try strip the trim, (as I already broke all the bayonet connections stripping rear door lining to replace a locking unit!) Will have a go at it shortly, thanks
 
Many thanks for the write up.

I managed to undo the two small torx screws, the one that is circled red and the one at the top, of the actuator. As I could not move the plastic cover up far enough. Once the second screw was removed, and using a screw driver I prised off the entire black plastic cover

I then discovered that the small metal hook, was no longer in the plastic part and nothing to hold it in place, so will investigate again further later in the week, more than likely I will need a replacement part, but least the door can be opened now, by having the windows down and a fumble for the latch inside the door, far from ideal, but will do for today.
 

Similar threads