Power Rear Lift Gate Malfunction - Problem and Solution

[thompson_sm]

Hi all-
Last week, while monkeying around with the trim around the rear gate, I disconnected the wiring harness that connects the rear door to the chassis.

When I put it all back together, and attempted to open the gate with either the interior button/switch, or the wireless remote, all I got was a long annoying beep. The beep was the same tone that is heard when the gate is closed with the power closer. Additionally, the exterior release wouldn't work either. No tone when I attempted to use it, just nothing. The only way to open the gate was to pop the small access cover off the interior of the gate and use the manual release.

Flash forward to the solution. I wasn't able to come up with anything (online or otherwise) so I resorted to the dealer. Luckily, the Toyota gods had mercy on me, and the solution was an easy one. The dealer wasn't able to find any issues with the gate, so they plugged into the OBD port and noticed that the computer had a fault code for the rear gate. (No light on the dash, just a code within the computer.) The Toyota tech simply reset the code and viola - the gate worked.
From talking with the service manager, he said that any diagnostic tool capable of resetting a malfunction/maintenance indicator lamp would be able to reset the code.

Hope this helps someone else!

[sweeneyp]

hahaha I have done that exact same thing. I unplugged the harness at the top of the tailgate (doing it to disable the OEM sub, I didn't tear the whole tailgate trim panels off to disconnect the connector at the sub.... realize my mistake now ), and ran into the same problem. Im curious did your dealer charge you to fix it? Mine charged me an arm and a leg (and they told me they flashed the tailgate ECU, not reset codes so I didn't throw a fit. Now that I know thats what they did )

anyway, thanks for posting this, it will help out for people who had no idea what happened (that was me awhile back) and to Toyota Nation!

[thompson_sm]

Luckily, no. There was no charge for the code reset (major thanks to Heintz Toyota in Mankato, MN!)

On my way to pick up the Highlander, I thought for sure that there might be an attempt to charge for the reset. As a result, I was preparing to have a 'discussion' about why the charge seemed unreasonable, but it wasn't necessary.

They even gave the Highlander a wash while it was there!

[dtown40]

Sounds like you found a dealer that really cares about customers in hopes of repeat business. That is something that is seldom seen anymore. Kudos to your dealer.