TOYOTA OWNERS! Power Back Door Problems and How to Prevent Them. 

A shame many customers deliver their cars covered in filth and expect the mechanic to work in it

Sreten does this for his cars... but they are his. This is being done for other's cars which is much more impressive. www.youtube.com/@M539Restorations

I don't even do that in the shower.

I have a 2023 Rav4 Prime. If the electric motor struts ever fail, I will convert to plain gas struts for sure, assuming the parts are available. My only question is the latch. Does it still work the same if you convert from the electric motor struts to gas struts?

Interesting. I’ve never had this problem in any American or German brands I’ve owned. And every car ran to a couple hundred thousand miles with no issues like this.

Happened to Chevrolet Equinox lol

Where in the glove box the switch never knew about it.

@@thomas9469 - I think that the glovebox switch that was referred to by @oantech4252 was only on Gen 3 Rav 4's and Highlanders (2006 to 2011 model year). My 2023 Rav4 Prime has no such switch in the glove box. However, the Gen 4 Rav4 does have a Vehicle Settings menu to enable/disable the power rear hatch completely, or enabale/disable the "Hands Free" hatch sensor, and set the maximum height that the hatch opens to. The setting to completely disable the electric hatch struts, is there to allow for carrying items that are too long to completely fit inside the vehicle, for example, a stack of 8 foot long or 10 foot long 2x4 wall studs. Under these circumstances, at least a couple of feet of the lumber is going to be hanging out the back. After you get the lumber tied down securely, you disable the electric hatch struts in the Menu Setting, then close the hatch manually and tie it down to the rear D-rings. NOTE: Pulling/pushing the rear hatch open and closed manually, with the electric motor struts disabled, is not healthy for the strut's internal drive mechanism. Doing this frequently will probably cause premature failure of the struts, and they are very expensive - $400 each from a Toyota dealer. The ability to disable the electric struts is only provided by Toyota for occasional, "emergency" use, when you have to drive the car with the rear hatch not closed and latched. Carrying over-length items like lumber would be better and safer on the roof cross-bars if you have them installed. There's no risk that another vehicle will hit them, and you don't have to disable the electric hatch struts or pull them closed manually.

I thought the EXACT same thing! 👍

When your auto repair tech has this type of ATTENTION TO DETAIL you know you have found a unicorn of a shop......

How does it latch and unlatch?

I did this also (shortly after the OEM warranty expired!). I was able to reuse the brackets by cutting the ends of the bad motors open with a hack saw.

@@davidgoldberg Yes, latches fine.

@@charlesmarsh2444 Do you push the button to unlatch and then raise the hatch manually?

@@davidgoldberg Yes, electric latch is also used on the manual version (LE) of the hatch.

Yeah, never had an issue with a mechanical door. These electric doors are slow as molassas too.

I didn't even know these were common nowadays. Sounds stupid when normal struts work fine.

@@theairaccumulator7144 they are even making tailgates in trucks power operated.... Both ways! Talk about bloat.

​@@theairaccumulator7144well normal struts fail as well.

​@@mikeh.8155 but A LOT cheaper.😉

All dealer are doing same !

Stealerships

Congrats!! Great move !!

Me too. I ended up purchasing a completely different Lexus than I started considering, due to the in-depth videos that are shown here.

Not expecting any problems, but glad I purchased extended warranty for our 2018 RX 350L. Only 49k miles . So much computer controlled stuff. So glad we found this channel years ago. Saved us with info for our 2011 Tacoma.

Passed one today, didn't notice the front end (hate toyota's large fish mouth look) but the styling overall looked very clean and nice.

The Lexus spindle grill is in my opinion the best looking, when you see it you know it’s a Lexus.

"I was base/low-tech before base/low-tech was cool." I love technology. When it actually works as promised. These electronic modules run the risk of pooping-out well before the (Toyota) vehicle is anywhere near done. I actually consider that when vehicle shopping. Cheers!

That’s the old style design. They are all going to these strut style now. No big bump on the interior ceiling where those old style motors went.

@@woodrmp1 Just another reason I'm glad I got the one I got.

Thanks to all you Toyota fanboys.

It happened to me, too. TMC won't fix the problem because they just pass the warranty claim back to the OEM manufacturer. Instead of re-engineering the part. 😢

Me interesa

Amen, and he's coming back soon!

Lol ​@@charley95sheridan44

You did well.

As opposed to all the robot people??

Lol :P Having looked at many of his videos, I like his work and his calm attitude :D

I think it’s useful especially if ur hands are full from carrying groceries and u need to open and close the door, ur just an old boomer who complains about these things lol

@@BigAltimaEnergy719 Yup. Just another old retired ,traveling boomer that has more money in his pocket not slaving away for "the man".

Huh, I’ve never had this problem in any American or German cars I’ve owned. All went well over 200k without issues like this.

@@tomdurkinsyou want a pat on the back? No car is perfect bud.

@@dbrandon4528 Exactly Dark Brandon. That’s my point.

I believe other users said around $1500. Which is what I paid for for my Mercedes for routine preventive maintenance. My friend who owned a BMW said it was better than what he pays for his. So was apprehensive about what I would pay when something actually went wrong. I didn’t want to find out so I traded mine before warranty expired and he did his i know own a Lexus he an Acura. It’s been 10 years and I have hardly spent any money other than maintenance. So my friend BMW still wins the $$ wars.

this is an expensive feature, unfortunately a fact of life that extra features have extra cost. the key to a toyota is having to fix things less, not fixing things cheaper.