stamy74

Hi there.

Today the automatic rear door mechanism stopped working. Recently I have noticed that when I was pressing the rear door close button, door was closing half way, stopping and opening again. Today it just stopped working. I cannot open it from the related button on the dashboard and I cannot close it from the rear door close button. The button on the glovebox is ON, anyway I pressed it several times in OFF/ON position just to be sure.

Any hints what it might be? Could be related to the cold weather (temperatures close and a bit below zero these days), although is the first time I face this issue? Car is a 2010 RX450h, so many cold winters in its back already. I replaced 12V battery and rear door gas struts a year ago, both OEM not original Lexus.

You can see the exact issue in the following 2 YouTube links:

Clutchless

Do a search using the term hatch as that is what we call the rear door.

There have been a few rear hatch motor failures discussed in this forum so be prepared.

stamy74

Hi,

Seems like it was just a cold temperature issue. I opened the door manually with a bit of force and now works fine. Probably the gas struts were a bit too tough with the cold and needed to warm up a bit I followed the advise of some guys where I live, who had the same experience with NXs.

stamy74

Actually it works only when interior of the car is warm. So either gas struts or power motor issue. I will further check.

Clutchless

Cheaper and easier to replace your struts again as I suspect they are more likely than your motor given the temperature effect on performance.
Cold weather usually shows the weakness in hatch struts, especially cheap aftermarket ones.

RX in NC

Some of the best hood and tailgate struts on the market are made by StrongArm. I put a pair of them on the hood of my wife's 2015 RX350 in October 2019. Much more robust than the factory hood struts were. If and when the factory tailgate struts begin to get weak, I will replace them with the appropriate StrongArm struts.

Clutchless

This site sells Strong Arm hatch struts ( I have them on my RX) and they will ship internationally.

https://www.liftsupportsdepot.com/ye...ILITY%204-DOOR

stamy74

I live in Romania, so I don't know how I could purchase these. But thanx a lot for the advice, I also believe is a strut related problem.

Clutchless

Lift Support Depot linked above will ship to Romania.