Power Sliding Door doesn't Close

[Camry1999]

Hey everybody,

My uncle has the '05 XLE Limited and the driver's side rear sliding door does not close properly. When you press the power door button on either the remote or the car, it does not open or close. You have to open it from the outside & pull it open, it moves throughout the automatic trac towards the middle. You have to push on the door really hard to close it tight. Does anyone know what the problem could be? The other side works fine.

[bill_toyota]

From http://siennachat.com/forum/index.php?topic=1631.15

Replying to: sienna_andy (Oct 02, 2009 9:19 am)
Just to give a quick update. I did successfully diagnose and fix the problem that a few of us described. To briefly restate the problem for anyone searching, the interior and exterior handles do usually succesfull engage the automatic sliding door, but the door would not open using the key fob, pillar button or front button. The problem as familymandan surmized was related to the door latches not releasing.

Comparing my working door to my non-working door, it was easy to see that there was a small motor that was not activating. Normally, it activates when any button is pushed and even when the interior and exterior handles are pulled. (When the handles are pulled it's actually redundant, because the handles also manually release the latches.)

I found an interior door diagram over at tundrasolutions.com and identified the part by name as the "Door Lock Release Motor Assembly". Toyota sold me the part for $103.09, which seemed better than scouring the junkyards for me. The Toyota part number is 85620-08061. It's basically just below the window motor, and it's pretty obvious from the cables that it actuates the door latches.

Before ordering the part, I unplugged the motor and stuck my multimeter into the feed to make sure it was getting power. Sure enough it was getting juice, but was dead as a doornail.

Got the part plugged it (just while holding it) to test if the new motor would solve the problem, and was pleased to see that it was a clean fix. The last step, obviously was getting it installed. It's a bit of a pain to replace because the motor screws into the sliding door atachment control panel from the back side. The only way to remove that panel is to disconnect the window. This made me slightly nervous, but it really wasn't that bad. Working slowly and carefully to pay attention to how all the trim goes back it probably took a little under 2 hours to replace the motor.

All is working great now.