Glimmer Genie

Hi James,

No luck I'm afraid. I had a couple of attempts, one of which produced some whirring, but I couldn't get the mechanism operating properly. I would have persevered but I happened to see the correct mechanism on eBay so I bought that. It was £60 but worth it to sort the problem out. I think the seller said they are quite rare. Hope you're able to sort it out - good luck.

Thanks Herbie, your help is very much appreciated.

Thanks Herbie, enjoy your tea

Hi Herbie, thanks for replying - sorry for having confused you. The car doesn't have a power tailgate but the unit I'm talking about is a small electric motor, an actuator if you like, which acts against a lever to release the latch. At the moment, the only way I can release the latch is to climb into the boot and manually move the lever with my finger through a little access window. I've attached an image of the unit I'm trying to replace.

I have a tailgate that won't open. I removed the rubber switch cover, which was in good condition with no sign of any moisture ingress or damage to the switch so I had a look on eBay and found a second-hand tailgate motor that appeared to be the correct replacement. It was only £20 so I bought it. Clearly I ought to have taken my time and done a bit of research first because it turns out that it's not an exact replacement. I think the original motor is fairly basic; you press the switch, the lock releases and you manually lift the tailgate. The  replacement appears to have more features, if the electrical wiring is anything to go by. Anyway, I was wondering if it might be possible to use this motor anyway? Despite being a bit bigger, the unit fits but the electrical connector is different to the one on the original unit. The original unit connects with 4 wires (red, black, yellow and blue) whereas the replacement has at least twice as many (see images attached). I'm wondering if I could swap the electrical connectors and just connect the wires that release the lock (assuming I can work out which they are) and leave all the others disconnected? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks for your quick reply Delphius1. There's no whirring so I'll start by investigating the switch. I don't know if it's significant but I had the same problem during the heatwave last year but when the temperature dropped a few days later the tailgate began to open again.

I'm having trouble with the tailgate of my 2005 RX300 SE not opening. Following the instructions in the manual, I've been able to release the latch from inside the boot but I'd like to find a permanent solution to the problem if possible. I'm fairly competent with basic maintenance (for example, I recently replaced the alternator) so I'm happy to have a go, as long as it's not too complicated or requires specialist tools, but I've been searching on line and I just can't find any instructions. Can anybody offer any guidance please?