Frozen door and hatch actuators???

[p_j_o]

So I just came back from 4 days up in the mountains where it was -15C (5F). On the morning to come home, both the rear passenger side door and the hatch wouldn't unlock... I couldn't hear the unlock "unlock" from those two locations. When I manually "unlocked" the lock on the rear door, no issue to open. Obviously I couldn't do that with the the rear hatch - and I couldn't open it, for about an 2 hours. Eventually, everything thawed enough work though...

The question is, is it possible for those actuators to freeze? if not, wtf happened? Any ideas????

pjo

 

[filoufil]

I had the exact same problem last year. I did uninstall the actuator and greased it but it eventually came back when we had really cold temperatures in the same year (at about -30C).

Hopefully someone else had the same problem and found a good solution.

 

[medelstein169]

So I just came back from 4 days up in the mountains where it was -15C (5F). On the morning to come home, both the rear passenger side door and the hatch wouldn't unlock... I couldn't hear the unlock "unlock" from those two locations. When I manually "unlocked" the lock on the rear door, no issue to open. Obviously I couldn't do that with the the rear hatch - and I couldn't open it, for about an 2 hours. Eventually, everything thawed enough work though...

The question is, is it possible for those actuators to freeze? if not, wtf happened? Any ideas????

pjo

I didn't have this issue with cold temps but I did have all four actuators fail and replaced under warranty. Apparently its a known issue with this age T4R

 

[catrains]

your problem is the door weather strips are shrinking breaking down. then water gets into the door cavity.. then the freeze up on the actuators.

I use a silicone paint/plastic safe spray to reduce the water intrusion .

I do live in snow country but in the cold northeast not a problem this year. LOL... planet is warming up ....

look at the weather strips if shrinking you could replace or add a sealer in the shrinkage areas.

 

[Reinout]

I'll second [MENTION=138935]catrains[/MENTION] and suggest (After thawing) doing a silicone treatment to the seals. I've used a heavy coating of armorall.

If you do take latches/locks/etc apart a big problem, IMHO, is that dirt/grease can accumulate over time. I've seen this in the bike industry as a tech where old shifter's grease gets so thick that it appears that the shifter needs to be replaced. In actuality the old gunk just needed to come out.

A secondary problem becomes the type of lubricant and the quantity of lubricant used. I'd suggest a thinner lubricant that only coats the parts needed and nothing more.

I'd love to throw all my latches, locks, etc into an unltrasonic cleaner to get it them really clean and use a PTFE based lubricant.

Just like chains on a bike drive-train: less lubricant is best in ALL cases.

 

[p_j_o]

Thanks everyone for the insight. Your right, this probably has to do with the door seals - I had the kids yank on the door last time this happened and it did pull the seals away from their mounting.

Looks like it might be time to replace them :sad:

pjo