I am hoping someone has had experience with this, because its driving me crazy. My rear hatch motor crapped out on me, and the motor was pulled all the way down, and i could not latch the hatch anymore. I ordered a new motor kit from TDS and installed it last night (great kit BTW). I tried the new motor out about 5 times and it worked just fine. So I put the panels back on, go to close the hatch, and sure enough the latch is all the way down and I cannot lock the rear hatch again. There are only 2 things I can think of left to replace, the reversing switch or the relay, but I don't want to keep replacing parts without knowing what's wrong (I may have already bought a motor I didn't need).

Any suggestions? I really need the hatch to lock down cause I can't really drive the car. The hatch will fly up whenever I hit bumps...

 

You need to look down inside - that reversing lever often gets stuck as the tiny spring on it often comes loose. Also, even with the spring still i tact, the lever sometimes has a tendancy to come off it's shaft partway, and thus doesn't work either. It was never a great design to begin with, and I'm convinced GM never expected these cars to be this popular for this long.

 

"It was never a great design to begin with, and I'm convinced GM never expected these cars to be this popular for this long."

No doubt on that one. With the base cars being on the lower end of the price spectrum, you would think that GM would have just used a standard latch/lock combo instead of the complicated pull down motor system...

Thanks for your advice. I went out to the car again and at the advice of Lon from TDS pushed the striker sensing switch down and it started moving again. Now the hatch motor is working fine, so I may need a new striker sensing switch/harness, as I believe I have not seen the last of this problem.

 

Some cars had a standard latch, some got the motor - not sure of the years/models that determined the feature, but ... they are really cool when they work, and they really suck when they don't.

 

The Latch going down without the hatch is a common problem. When I first bought my car that happen and went to the Dealer for warranty work. Well the service tech stuck his finger in the opening and bought it back up, he told me to hold the hatch until it engaged & going down before walking away.

Just to let you know, so you don't buy any additional parts you don't need.

 

it's not the best idea G.M. ever had , works o.k. for a while . if you want to keep it go to TDS an get their up-dated set up . if not lock it in place . good luck .

 

I've yet to have an instance where the pull down motor crapped out and I could not get the hatch to close...you just have to slam the hell out of it until you can replace the motor or fix whatever is keeping it from working properly. Just in case you can't deal with it right away, try closing it harder first :-p

 

That is about the dumbest reply that I have seen in a long time.

 

I don't see how. If it craps out right before a downpour of rain and you need it shut until the next day to fix it, slam the ****ing thing...who's dumb here... It was obviously not a "how to fix it" solution post. It was a get your rear hatch closed until you can deal with it post. It's better than parking the car for god knows how long until the pull down gets fixed. Name calling is unnecessary. In the opening post he said he needs help so he can get get his car on the road again...if he's like most of us and it doesn't rain money and spare time at our houses, it takes a while to get either sometimes to fix and repair problems on our cars. If it were me, I would try and slam the hatch so I could drive it and not use it until I could fix it...but I guess that's just dumb. It's smart to get a tow truck and pay to have it towed home until it can be fixed or let the hatch flap in the wind while you wait right? Lemme guess, you're from south Florida right...

 

"Slamming" the hatch on a motorized trunk just threatens to break the motor pieces beyond repair - all the gears and such are just plastic. I wouldn't "slam" anything on my car ever, as I don't imagine most here would. Water (ie rain) is just wet, and easily cleaned up. I'll take "wet" over "broke to hell 'cause my dumb a$$ slammed it" ANYDAY!!

{Unless I sadly owned a ***** - then I agree - slam the hell out of it }

 

Yea, I've seen "just wet" plenty on these cars...had a t-top lately... They are all pristine under there too with all that matting and sound deadening material getting wet. I don't care. Do what you all want. One slam is not going to kill the thing. It's not intended to be permanent and should be taken care of as soon as you get a chance. The OP was basically parking his car in the meantime...I thought, hey if you can get it shut until you can buy a new motor or repair what you have, awesome...you can drive the car for a few more days then. Makes no difference to me either way.