You've all read the complaints. I wanted to voice my frustration too. What kind of over-achiever takes a perfectly normal latching system like the one I have on my 83 and sets out to make it more expensive and less reliable (like the one on my 86)? What added value comes out of a latch that sucks the hatch down and needs adjustment to work right? I won't touch on the idiocy of using plastic gear housings that are prone to break.

Oh, but the latest problem with my mechanism is that it doesn't stop sucking..... I guess it's out of adjustment again. The motor just slows down until it can't move anymore but it persists to wear down the battery. I figured it out today because it's really frigging hot.

I move that from now on, we insert the word stupid in front of the name, hatch pull-down.

 

my stupid hatch pulldown works just fine....
:::knocks on wodden desk, wall, book shelf, and keyboard tray:::

 

Mine does too....




















Until the housing broke.

 

Maybe im the only one, but I happen to love the hatch motor.

 

My (87)Camaro is almost 17 years old, has 289,000km on it & the hatch pull down works just fine, despite being slammed, pressed down on while it was closing and numerous other no-no's. (Touch Wood)

I love the pulldown feature!!!

 

This is my third thirg-gen and first with the stupid hatch pull-down feature. I paid $300 for this car so perhaps I deserve this punishment.

I still don't understand how this design is better than the earlier design. Why complicate things? If it aint broken.......

 

the prob that GM was getting complaints about was the rear hatch shattering when the hatch was slammed. they "solved" the prob with the pull down motor.

atleast thats the story ive been told by several people. why my 91 convertibles trunk needs it, i dont know. lol


in anycase, think of it this way. you car is HOW many years old? how many miles? do you think GM designed ANY part of the car to really last that long?


be glad it worked as long as it did. that plastic part took alot of abuse before it broke.


just think how the power siding door minivan and power opening hatch people are going to complain in 10 years... lol

 

I replaced mine once; $50 from a junkyard. First one died because of the stripped worm gear. Had a buddy's whose died when the housing cracked.

I made sure to realign the new motor exactly as the old one was. I also make sure to gently "push" down on the spoiler as the thing pulls itself closed, hopefully relieving any stress that the worm gear and/or housing is taking.

 

It works fine now. Cursing really does help sometimes......


When I bought the car, the gear housing was broken, I guess, because the hatch struts were shot and somebody let the trunk slam. So perhaps this stupid mechanism did it's duty and saved the glass.

I definitely wouldn't expect these to last forever. I guess that's why I favor simplicity. Whatever the reason, that small group of engineers has left a lot of people puzzled. Wouldn't it be nice if we could find some of these people to come on-line for Q&A?

 

Fixed the one on my sons Camaro with the Miller Deltaweld handy dandy wire feed repair system

Got it set where it closed and latched solidly, marked it and tacked it in four places. disconnected the wiring to the motor and capped it off. No more trouble and no empty wallet trying to find a replacement. Yessir, it works just like its supposed to.

 

My hatch is a manual close now. THe sucker got stuck and I got lucky and was able to just move the unit down to the last two bottom bolts that hold it on and it was low enough to get it closed right.

Matt

 

I unplugged my pull-down device (it wasn't working anyway, made a buzzing sound). I adjusted the hatch's hinges. Now I barely slam the hatch down and it locks with ease.

-Akshay