If you have the issue where your rear hatch won't open but you hear the actuator moving inside, this fix is for you.

It's been months since I couldn't open the rear lift gate. When I pressed the release button I could hear the actuator engaging but something was not unlocking the door.

I took the actuator out (which is really easy) and then inspected it and how it worked. For these months that it was not working I would leave the little square access door off and manually pull up the bottom arm to unlock the door.

The way the actuator works is when you press the release button, the longer arm lifts up and should lift up the bottom smaller arm to unlock the door.

My fix was to zip tie the arms together.

Instructions:

Step 1: Remove rear lift gate panel. (Pop the cover for the handle off, and unscrew the bolt with a Phillips screw driver; then use a flat head screw driver and pull the panel away from the door starting from the bottom middle. Go around the panel and pop out all clips; then lift up the panel off the top of the door and set panel aside.

Step 2: Remove the plastic shit. Don't cut it. Go around and score the black adhesive with a razor and slowly remove half of it so you can access the actuator.

Step 3: Remove the 1 10mm bolt holding the actuator in.

Step 3: Pop the plastic cover off the bottom latch and remove the 3 10mm bolts on the bottom of the latch.

Step 4: There is one cable going into the actuator. Follow it to the door, pop out the rubber grommet being careful not to tear it, and unplug from the harness.

Step 5: Remove the actuator out of the door.

Step 6: Zip Tie the 2 arms together feeding zip tie through the hole at end of each arm. (Do not make the zip tie too tight. Make it tight so there is no play between the 2 while keeping the original position of the lower arm)



Step 7: Reverse and reinstall everything the same way you took it apart.

Step 8: Disconnect battery negative ground for about 10-15 seconds to reset the ECU. If you skip this step your actuator may seem like it is not getting any power and you will scare yourself thinking your damaged something. Reconnect battery and test door.

Hope this helps someone out there!

superb @justinfetalvero
the 2 arms in mine appear stuck, not moving much, is that the normal behaviour?
thought they should have some degree of movement simulating the hatch unlocking.
i have the hatch removed, cleaned and greased, but still the 2 arms have limited movement, am tempted to cut open the plastic housing to dig deeper into the assy

I would remove the plastic so you can see the inner assembly.

Look to see if anything is causing the gears and arms to not move and try to fix that.

If I leave something half hanging out the hatch and close it, the auto lock gets bent and I have to rebend the metal back to where it should be.

You can also try pushing in fairly hard while you simultaneously open the trunk and pull up. May take a couple tries.

Good luck!

finally got it working ok now, this video helped a lot
YouTube

am super stoked, i was able to repair the assy myself, i hooked up the motor to 12v and used it to move the arms, while i manually adjusted the locking mechanism.

next stop is to repair the weather stripping, cos thats what failed and allowed water into the hatch in the first place

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so i did this and it worked on the replacement liftgate i got. any idea why this works or what fails requiring this?

Worked like a charm,thanks buddy!

This works. Simple solution to a super annoying problem.

Does anyone know what brand the actuator is for the tailgate? I know the other doors say aisin. Is the tailgate aisin?