About 3 years ago the rear lift gate started acting up. I would press the button on the gate, it would make a sound like it was going to open but wouldn't. After about 2-3 tries it would finally open. Well this winter it finally stopped working completely. It would still make the sound but it would not open. I searched these forums and discovered that some other people had the same problem but nobody really had a solution. Couple weeks ago I had the car at the dealership to replace one of the catalytic converters. While there I asked them to look into the lift gate. They told me that the lock assembly had to be replaced and quoted me over $500. I told them no thanks but asked them for the part # that needed to be replaced.
I ordered the part from conicelli Toyota (partznet dot com) and it cost me $170 delivered (they had a sale at the time). I replaced it today and it took me about 1.5 hr.
The part number is 69110-35062 Lock Assy, w/motor and it looks like this:
New part on left, old on right. Notice that the cover on the left side of the old part is missing. It had broken away and was laying inside the lift gate. I wonder if that contributed to the lock getting dirty and stuck.
The replacement procedure is pretty simple. Remove the back door trim using this procedure:
http://www.toyota-4runner.org/600822-post4.html
You will see this:
Remove the plastic trim from the bottom of the lift gate and you'll see this:
Remove the 3 bolts from the bottom and the 1 from the back, unplug the harness and remove the entire lock assembly. Installation of the new part is reverse of removal. This whole procedure takes about 30 minutes. Why did it take me 1.5 hr? Because I had to reset the computer which I didn't know about. After installing the new part the lock did not work. Nothing... dead silence. I checked the fuses, tried it with the back glass down and up, tried it using the key but nothing worked. Finally I started reading these forums and found a reset procedure here:
http://www.toyota-4runner.org/178185-post2.html
This worked but I also had to start the car for it to work. Somebody also mentioned that unplugging the bottom right harness on the backdoor computer also works but I didn't try that. If I knew that the computer had to be reset before I started working on this I would have been done in 30 minutes. Over all I saved about $400 by doing this myself.
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2013 Toyota 4Runner Limited, Magnetic Gray
2004 Toyota 4Runner SR5, Stratosphere Mica <-- SOLD