2011 Power Rear Door Problem, Recall?

[tagheuer]

Ok. we have a 2011 Highlander 4WD Limited with the power rear door, it has about 3,700 miles on it.

The other day when I was loading groceries in while my wife was in the car with the kids, she accidently pushed the close button and the door started to close on me. The anti-pinch feature worked fine, the door stopped once it encountered moderate pressure (no injuries, it doesn't take a lot of force to stop the door).

Finish loading, go to close the door, now the door won't close, it gets down the last few inches and hangs up and then beeps. From then on it will intermittently close, and when it does close it closes with a clunk. (Of course, I blame my wife for breaking the door because she closed it on me and I had to push back to stop it).

Make appt. with dealer, take in this AM (Serra Toyota, Farmington Hills, MI). Dealer says this is a known problem. there is a gap in the driver's side hinge or something (my wife took it in....you know the story)....

and Toyota is working on a fix and should have one in the next 30-60 days, and this may turn into a recall.

I am a little miffed at the dealer since they didn't tell me this on the phone, I had to make a service appt., arrange to have a ride, rearrange kids daycare schedule etc. only to show up and say there is nothing we can do, we absolutely know about this and we can't fix it now...

Anyone else encountered this problem? It sounds like it is fairly widespread.

[sweeneyp]

Originally Posted by tagheuer

Ok. we have a 2011 Highlander 4WD Limited with the power rear door, it has about 3,700 miles on it.

The other day when I was loading groceries in while my wife was in the car with the kids, she accidently pushed the close button and the door started to close on me. The anti-pinch feature worked fine, the door stopped once it encountered moderate pressure (no injuries, it doesn't take a lot of force to stop the door).

Finish loading, go to close the door, now the door won't close, it gets down the last few inches and hangs up and then beeps. From then on it will intermittently close, and when it does close it closes with a clunk. (Of course, I blame my wife for breaking the door because she closed it on me and I had to push back to stop it).

Make appt. with dealer, take in this AM (Serra Toyota, Farmington Hills, MI). Dealer says this is a known problem. there is a gap in the driver's side hinge or something (my wife took it in....you know the story)....

and Toyota is working on a fix and should have one in the next 30-60 days, and this may turn into a recall.

I am a little miffed at the dealer since they didn't tell me this on the phone, I had to make a service appt., arrange to have a ride, rearrange kids daycare schedule etc. only to show up and say there is nothing we can do, we absolutely know about this and we can't fix it now...

Anyone else encountered this problem? It sounds like it is fairly widespread.

I had a problem like this on my 08. When it ran into something it knocked it out of alignment. The door had to be pushed to close and it would move the whole tailgate sidways when it lachted. The dealership removed the lower latch (on the car not tailgate) and realigned it a little sideways, works fine now. Until about a week ago when the tailgate ECU had a bad day and had to be reprogrammed (90 bucks down the drain). but besides that... haha

[caf2461]

My saga with this issue is similiar and continues (once I find a dealer that knows what they are doing). My driver side hinge has more play than passanger side and the whole hatch seems to sit a tad low. See attached link:
First Dealer Service experience - not a good one

BTW my 2011 SE is 4 months old and has 5K miles on it. The hatch will auto close if near the end of the power closing I apply very light pressure to the side opposite the power closure (passenger side). For some reason the passenger side trails the powered side and does not latch - giving a warning and thus unlatching the drives side. The dealer was unable to fix it.

My problem started from the factory hatch floor matt sliding rearward causing interferance with the door. I did not want to make a comment about Toyota and their problems with floor matts sliding around........

[tagheuer]

Originally Posted by caf2461

My saga with this issue is similiar and continues (once I find a dealer that knows what they are doing). My driver side hinge has more play than passanger side and the whole hatch seems to sit a tad low. See attached link:
First Dealer Service experience - not a good one

BTW my 2011 SE is 4 months old and has 5K miles on it. The hatch will auto close if near the end of the power closing I apply very light pressure to the side opposite the power closure (passenger side). For some reason the passenger side trails the powered side and does not latch - giving a warning and thus unlatching the drives side. The dealer was unable to fix it.

My problem started from the factory hatch floor matt sliding rearward causing interferance with the door. I did not want to make a comment about Toyota and their problems with floor matts sliding around........

Argh. Seriously, this is a pretty major thing, having a rear hatch that won't close properly. The service tech I spoke with said the same thing, that it may require some type of body repair, and/or the hinges may be pulling away from the body, they just don't know.

This is my first Toyota. I am starting to think I made a big mistake with this because the only reason I bought a Toyota was for reliability. I have owned many German cars before (BMW, VW and Audi) and I accepted their reliability issues because they drive great.

No offense, Toyotas don't drive great, they ARE boring, etc. and I was willing to compromise and give up excellent handling of our BMW X3 in exchange for better reliability.

I'm very disappointed, this is a pretty basic issue. My door closes with a loud "clunk" and it sounds like it is causing additional damage.

Dealer said call us back if the door completely refuses to close...and we'll try to help. WTF?! At that point the vehicle would become completely undriveable, and unsafe....you can't drive around with a partially secured rear door, it will take on water, be ineffective in a rear end collision, etc....

Sorry for the rant, thanks for confirming you have the same problem.

Lets try to keep this updated so we can hopefully get a fix....unbelievable....

[caf2461]

My rear hatch window seal came in and they replaced it. They also adjusted the striker and now the rear hatch closes. They had it all day and my guess is they had more to do than that but that is all that I got from the service manager.

Hopefully it is fixed for good. I noticed that where the hinges mount there is not as much play as before. The hinges seem bolted down better.

[allanbradl]

My 2011 highlander has the same issue, door would not close, but rather random, sometimes it does sometimes it doesnt, so I just push it by hand to latch properly. Slightly annoying issue. I do not want to visit dealership for many resons, mostly for their incompetence and possily more damage. Hope for recall though.

[tagheuer]

quick update, I finally had some spare time today so I called Toyota and "opened up a case" or whatever, they gave me some reference number. The person I spoke with was very friendly and seemed eager to help...

He did some "research" in his computer but didn't find a TSB or anything else...he did mention that he may not have access to all technical issues so its possible it could be an issue but just not showing in his database.

So....I am going to try to take it to another local dealer for a second opinion....I was kind of hoping it was a known issue and they are working a factory fix....but that may not be the case....

[jcayer]

I had the same problem on mine (2009 Highlander hybrid limited)

took it to the local dealer, they were real friendly/nice and took care of if for me (still under factory warranty).

They just said it needed "alignment", not sure if it is the hinges or latch or what, but it works fine now.

Granted, its only been fixed for about 2 weeks, but it has been fine so-far...

They also tried to activate the remote open windows/sunroof in the computer, but for some reason, only the sunroof opens via remote, windows never budge, so I guess I will have to go back...

[subvet]

I'm another one with 2011 power hatch lift issues. We have 8K on the odo and it began about a month ago. It first occured about a month ago when we stopped to look at a model home. We put some things in the rear of the vehicle and hit the button on the hatch then went on our way. When we came out a 1/2 hour or-so later, the hatch was standing wide open. ooops.

I notice now, the problem is intermittent. I don't recall it ever running into anything except 1 time when we had a bunch of golf clubs loaded in the back and the hatch collided with one of the bags.

Now, watching it, it's almost as-if the hatch is losing power in the latching process, or encountering resistance in the final 1/2" of closing. I suppose it's probably an alignment problem. A slight push by hand fixes it but the latch engagement is alot noisier now too. I put a little bit of axle grease on the latch assy and it seemed to help but it's going in for the 10K oil change next month and I'll have them address the problem then.

Gald to see it's not just me.

[tagheuer]

please let us know if your issue is resolved. Mine is scheduled to go in to a different dealer (Page Toyota, Southfield, MI) this week.

Mine closes with slight pressure. But it sounds like it is clunking/dragging on the latch in the center on the bottom.

its clearly not right.

[jcayer]

I had to take mine back in for the same issue... First time, they "adjusted the door", this lasted for a week or two I think, and then happened again (intermittently).

This time, they seemed to have fixed it better, spent over 3 hours with their lead tech getting involved adjusting the striker ("U" shaped hook peice at floor of hatch, NOT attached to the door)...

Apparently the tolerances specs from toyota (to maintain a air-tight vehicle) are so specific, a 1/8th of an inch one way or another will mess up the alignment. At least this is what I was told last time....

The tech is going to report the issue to Toyota supposedly.

I HOPE this takes care of it, I am about to go over my factory warranty (its an 09) and this is the only problem I have had with the vehicle so far...

[figmentsas]

I just recently had the same issue for my 2008 HiHy Limited. But in my case, the dealer noticed that the rubber seal around the rear latch was loose in some areas, and I guess it caused the auto latch mechanism to sense the door did not fully close, so it would beep and open back up. They simply glued the rubber seal and the auto rear door closing works OK. They believe the rubber seal got loose after extensive removing of items from the rear (like groceries) and each time, it chafed and loosened the rubber seal. I never even noticed or looked at the rubber seal, so I was glad they were able to solve my problem.

[tagheuer]

update for my situation.....to recap, the rear power door on our 2011 limited 4wd started to fail to close in the last inch or so....it would hang up. when it did close it would clunk.

it would close with gentle pressure/help.

First dealer, Serra Toyota of Farmington Hills, MI...when I arrived for appt...said they know the issue, there is presently no fix and they sent me home.

Called Toyota, they searched their system, didn't find a TSB or anything.

So...tried Page Toyota in Southfield, MI. They diagnosed problem within two hours, said they need to replace both upper hinges, parts are ordered and should be here Mon/Tues.

They seem confident....

I suspect that there may be a batch of 2011s with misaligned/bad upper hinges....but this is just my speculation...

Obviously others problems are caused by other things, like seals, etc.

[tagheuer]

update....got our Highlander back yesterday. Dealer ordered hinges and had their bodyshop install them. I thought it was the "upper" hinges that were being replaced, the ones with large bolts, but it looks like they replaced the lower hinges, I can tell because the paint no longer matches (not a big deal, its on the inside of the vehicle, but you can tell its not factory spray job)

Door seems to be aligned much better, the panel gap on either side is more even now (before one side was larger than other) and the door is closing more smoothly, no clunk.

Have only had it back for a day...so can't speak to long term fix...but it seems to be repaired, closing much smoother and a better fit.

[ninjacomplaint]

It makes me feel good to see that I'm not the only one with this rear door issue. I have 2010 limited and our door does not shut all the way... we just brought it in today because this problem is now recurring after 2 months. Originally, body shop at the dealership blamed us for the damage by coming up with different scenarios on how it could have happened. That repair (replacement of both hinges) ended up costing us $500 out of pocket. Dealership did not make mention of Factory warranty. They just quoted us another hinge replacement, for the left-side only this time ($300). I don't feel like we should be paying for this if its a factory issue and I dont feel like making another visit for this same thing. I will call the manufacturer to see if they can provide an unhappy toyota owner with some guidance.