2009 Kluger Grande GSU45R tailgate

[Gil]

Hello,

My 2009 Kluger Grande GSU45R powered tailgate was functioning with no issues (opening & closing) in the past few years. A month ago I tried to close the tailgate but it beeped, started closing and jumped right back, the behaviour is like the system detects a resistance of some kind. I have no issue when the door is shut and I open the powered tailgate, it opens all the way up, the issue is only when I try to close it.

I took off the gas struts and got them tested by a professional and the reading came out good, meaning that the issue is not from the gas struts.

I tried to hold the close button (found some instructions on Google) to try and reset the system but it didn't work.

Has anyone experienced such an issue and if so, how did you get it fixed?

 

Thanks in advance

Gil

Edited May 4, 2021 by Gil

[Kombi17]

On 5/4/2021 at 10:37 AM, Gil said:

I have a 2011 Kluger and had very similar issues as you a few years back. The tailgate worked fine, started playing up and eventually stopped working. The good news was it was fixed by Toyota by replacing the motor that raises the the tailgate and the struts for safe measure and it's been working fine since. Luckily it was covered by extended warranty. The bad news is if you have to pay for this fix, Toyota will charge $3200. To me, it sounds like the motor is has reached the end of it's life span and will only get worse.

 

On 5/4/2021 at 10:37 AM, Gil said:

Hello,

My 2009 Kluger Grande GSU45R powered tailgate was functioning with no issues (opening & closing) in the past few years. A month ago I tried to close the tailgate but it beeped, started closing and jumped right back, the behaviour is like the system detects a resistance of some kind. I have no issue when the door is shut and I open the powered tailgate, it opens all the way up, the issue is only when I try to close it.

I took off the gas struts and got them tested by a professional and the reading came out good, meaning that the issue is not from the gas struts.

I tried to hold the close button (found some instructions on Google) to try and reset the system but it didn't work.

Has anyone experienced such an issue and if so, how did you get it fixed?

 

Thanks in advance

Gil

 

[Gil]

Thanks for sharing.

I took the car to an auto electrician who diagnosed the same as you mentioned, motor fault and mentioned that 2nd hand parts are not available and going to Toyota will cost north of $3k.

I am not going to invest and will shut the door the old fashion way :-).

[Tony Prodigy]

6 hours ago, Gil said:

Thanks for sharing.

I took the car to an auto electrician who diagnosed the same as you mentioned, motor fault and mentioned that 2nd hand parts are not available and going to Toyota will cost north of $3k.

I am not going to invest and will shut the door the old fashion way :-).

3K for a tailgate motor job is absolutely ludicrous. They fill these cars with all this junk and expect us to cough up an absurd amount when it fails prematurely ?

Tell 'em they're dreamin' 

[Gil]

true, very true.

[Kombi17]

Maybe worth trying some local wreckers and seeing if you could buy a second hand tailgate motor. If you could score a used motor for a few hundred, it's a lot reasonable than a few thousand. 

[Tony Prodigy]

7 hours ago, Kombi17 said:

Maybe worth trying some local wreckers and seeing if you could buy a second hand tailgate motor. If you could score a used motor for a few hundred, it's a lot reasonable than a few thousand. 

I totally agree. How hard can it be ?

[Gil]

Agree, wreckers are always an option, unfortunately I had a mishap in the past where I took the extra mile to find a part and salvage it only to find that it died out 3 months later...

Bottom line, Its a calculated risk that one needs to take.

[Tony Prodigy]

2 hours ago, Gil said:

Agree, wreckers are always an option, unfortunately I had a mishap in the past where I took the extra mile to find a part and salvage it only to find that it died out 3 months later...

Bottom line, Its a calculated risk that one needs to take.

I wonder how much just the motor would cost new from Toyota. Surely not 3k as mentioned. I would've thought this would include labour and potentially some programming. Even so I cannot see how they could justify that amount. It's just an actuator motor.

[Kombi17]

23 hours ago, Tony Prodigy said:

I wonder how much just the motor would cost new from Toyota. Surely not 3k as mentioned. I would've thought this would include labour and potentially some programming. Even so I cannot see how they could justify that amount. It's just an actuator motor.

I think it was around 2k for the motor, a few hundred for struts and the rest on labour. If I didn't have warranty, I wouldn't have bothered.  I checked the receipt and it didn't show the cost of just the motor. 

https://parts.toyota.com/p/Toyota_2009_Highlander/Tailgate-Pull-Down-Motor/69353984/8500709005.html shows it as 1500usd which is about 1900aud..

[Sir Gregory]

On 5/4/2021 at 12:37 PM, Gil said:

Hello,

My 2009 Kluger Grande GSU45R powered tailgate was functioning with no issues (opening & closing) in the past few years. A month ago I tried to close the tailgate but it beeped, started closing and jumped right back, the behaviour is like the system detects a resistance of some kind. I have no issue when the door is shut and I open the powered tailgate, it opens all the way up, the issue is only when I try to close it.

I took off the gas struts and got them tested by a professional and the reading came out good, meaning that the issue is not from the gas struts.

I tried to hold the close button (found some instructions on Google) to try and reset the system but it didn't work.

Has anyone experienced such an issue and if so, how did you get it fixed?

 

Thanks in advance

Gil

I had a similar problem on my 2008 Kluger, and from memory it was the gears, not the motor. Can't recall how much it cost unfortunately. Certainly not $3K+ though.

[mayhewga]

My 2013 Grande tailgate stopped working recently when I too parked on a sideways slope and it wouldn't close. I have had to resort to manual operation.

I tried many ideas suggested on various web sites and the problem became worse until it wouldn't open or close electrically.

Today I tried "assisting" the motor by pressing the button and manually lifting and closing the tailgate a few times, in an attempt to reset the mechanism which has sort of worked.

The tailgate will now at least open electrically as per normal, but when closing, it just starts to close then reverses as if it has detected an obstacle or thinks it has hit a limit switch.

It will only close with my helping the motor by pushing on the door, but won't close on its own.

I disconnected the lifting arm from the tailgate and the motor drives the arm up and down with no problem, so the motor and gears work, and the tailgate weight seems nicely counterbalanced by the gas struts. So in short:

1.The motor and gears work in both directions with no door connected, 2. the motor and gear mechanism happily lift the door when it is re-connected, 3. the motor and mechanism stall when trying to close the door.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Speedz]

On 10/28/2022 at 1:26 PM, mayhewga said:

My 2013 Grande tailgate stopped working recently when I too parked on a sideways slope and it wouldn't close. I have had to resort to manual operation.

I tried many ideas suggested on various web sites and the problem became worse until it wouldn't open or close electrically.

Today I tried "assisting" the motor by pressing the button and manually lifting and closing the tailgate a few times, in an attempt to reset the mechanism which has sort of worked.

The tailgate will now at least open electrically as per normal, but when closing, it just starts to close then reverses as if it has detected an obstacle or thinks it has hit a limit switch.

It will only close with my helping the motor by pushing on the door, but won't close on its own.

I disconnected the lifting arm from the tailgate and the motor drives the arm up and down with no problem, so the motor and gears work, and the tailgate weight seems nicely counterbalanced by the gas struts. So in short:

1.The motor and gears work in both directions with no door connected, 2. the motor and gear mechanism happily lift the door when it is re-connected, 3. the motor and mechanism stall when trying to close the door.

Any thoughts on this?

 

Just to make sure you had the auto close on a flat ground?

[mannaklug]

I have a solution to this issue

Today my tail lift unit failed for both open and close

I removed the drive unit and dissasembeled the denso 12v dc motor from the gearbox to find the motor caked in burnt grease that had drippped into the motor case from the open gearbox

The brushes and contacts on the armeture were gummed into oblivion

Cleaned it all out very carefully and now it runs quiet and like new

My suspicions arose because it sounded like to motor was always working too hard for what it was doing.

 

If your tail lift partially goes up or down then returns this is likely the overall cause of the issue.

You have to remove the panels from the door scuff,tray and side pocket to get into it as its all installed in steps also the cup holder has a screw at the front to get before you can romode the lower wall panel to take off the upper wall panel.

 

Much easier to put back together.

Edited March 9 by mannaklug
not enough info in original post

[mayhewga]

Mannaklug, your blood's worth bottling. Thankyou.

After reading your post this morning I immediately knew you were right, as I had previously dismantled everything except the motor and could find nothing wrong, so just gave up.

So I spent the morning dismantling the panels, removing the mechanism and pulled out the motor.

It was caked with black junk all over the brushes and commutators, just as you described, which I cleaned off, reassembled and hey presto, the rear door raised and lowered.

I also discovered that annoying beeper is part of the circuit board controlling the motor, and that Toyota had tried to reduce the sound with a little patch of polyester wadding on the panel.

I added some more wadding and now the beeps are much quieter.

The job took about 4 hours, involving the removal of the 3 storage compartments, the rear and left side scuff plates, then all the left side panels.

Hint, the two cargo hooks have screws beneath the central strip of plastic which flips up.

Then I was able to remove the whole mechanism then pull out the motor, which needed a little prising with a small screwdriver after removing it's two bolts. (The black junk really stuck everything together).

By ensuring the the motor bushes were freely sliding in their mounts, the bearing and commutators easily slid past during reassembly.

Putting everything back together after that was a breeze.

My tools were a plastic panel tool, 10 mm socket and spanner, Phillips head no 2 screwdriver, a toothbrush and metho.

 

 

[captainrex]

Hi Eveyone

Does anyone know if you can buy the brushes for this motor, mine where covered in grease and too worn and not making proper contact under load. I am not spending $3200 on something i can fix for 10 bucks, but i cant find the brushes anywhere. They are 4mm x 4.6mm and 6mm long probably should be double that length. 

Thanks in advance for any help.

[mayhewga]

Captainrex, I am finding I have to reclean the commutator to keep the motor working, as it re-fails every few months, so next time I'm going to clean out all the grease from the gears to see if that works.

My brushes look about the same as yours.

By the way, have you found an easier way to get the motor out without removing so many panels?

[mannaklug]

Hi guys

ive been thru this before.

They are similar to a Denso 12 V 5N Servo Motor replacement brushes from progressive automations and even if they are abit big they are graphite and easily sanded down to the right size...

i used to repair power tools and other heavy electrical items so its fairly easy from experience.
these are the closest i can find to the right thing

https://www.progressiveautomations.com/products/ac-23?_pos=1&_sid=b817639df&_ss=r

 

• Brush Depth: 10.4 mm

• Brush Width: 6.0 mm

• Brush Height: 6.0 mm

Edited September 5 by mannaklug

[mannaklug]

i will also add that the amount of grease on the gears etc above the actuator was way more than required and in the heat of summer was 1000% the cause of the gummy servo motor as it would spin off the main drive gear as the worm gear engaged in the heat of the day the drip down the hot servo armature.
wipe some of it off if you happen to disassemble the gearbox BUT be strictly aware of how you pull it apart as there are spacers that need to go back the same way on the gears.