Trouble opening rear hatch...

[Tanko]

Hello,

The handle above the rear license plate that opens the rear hatch seems to be stuck. When it (intermittently) operates, I can feel the inside mechanism working that releases the door, right now it "grabs" nothing. I used to be able to whack the outside area with my fist and would hear a thunk, and then the handle would work.

During a servicing I asked the mechanic to check it...said he couldn't find anything. (it apparently worked for him)

Before I attempt to check it myself, anything prone to failure that I should be looking for?

 

[crankinn]

I had the same problem with my rear door latch when I first got my runner (lots of rust/corrosion) so I kept spraying Wurth's Rost Off in it for about 15 mins while working the handle and it hasn't failed since.

Best of luck!

 

[seanshreds]

Well on my moms 2002 sequoia, basically a larger version of our 4runners, the handle has broken multiple times but recently the latch mechanism broke and the tail gate would not open at all and so I had to stick a sawsall under the tail gate and cut the d-ring to open it up and replace the whole mechanism. I do not know if ours are this way but on that latch there was a plastic coating on it that rubbed off and jammed the mechanism almost completely shut. I will post a picture of this so you can see what I am talking about and you should definitely check that for good measure. Also what you should do is take off the back interior panel and you should be able to see the inside of the handle and you will be able to tell if something is broken. The dealer will charge around $700 in labor if the latch is broken and a few hundred if the handle is broken so if you can, do it yourself. I feel like what I just said may be a little unclear so please ask me to clarify if needed. I will go take a picture of the broken latch so you can compare with yours but if the latch looks fine then you probably just need to order a new handle which is an easy fix.

 

[seanshreds]

The top arrow show the little bit of plastic that is left and the bottom arrow shows bare metal. The latch part that clamps down on the d-ring used to be fully covered with plastic but now it is all jammed up inside the mechanism and makes it so it cannot open.