Suburban Rear Liftgate Won’t Unlock - How To Fix
I apologize that car repairs for a Chevy Suburban are totally off-topic for the Coffee.net blog, but I ran across this issue the day before going kayaking and saw that it’s apparently a major issue with Chevrolet owners (Tahoe, Yukon, Range Rovers, etc) with no documented fixes. In fact, I’m pretty sure this needs to be a recall issue (are you listening GMC?). But, I believe that I found a fix for my particular problem, so hopefully this can help any other Suburban owners out there who are / have experienced the same problems with their liftgates / rear doors not unlocking.
Replaced lift gate handle the culprit?
My Suburban was working just fine up until about 3 weeks ago when I noticed that my lift gate handle had broken. One of the hinge pins had snapped (cheap plastic does that) so I had to find a whole replacement handle on eBay for $70 (dealer wanted a ridiculous $150). It didn’t help that some dealers called it a rear door handle, trunk handle or lift gate handle depending on the model year.
After I got the part, installation was easy enough: pop the panel, unbolt existing handle, pry off and install new handle, reattach handle wire and that was it.
Or so I thought.
Fast forward six hours later. I’m now at REI in downtown Seattle, where I’ve just purchased a brand spanking new 12′ kayak. The store has closed and I’m now in the garage, walking up to the ‘burb, kayak in tow, when I point my key FOB at the car as I usually do and hit unlock. Lights flash, I hear the usual “thump” sound, yank the handle and nearly fall over on my ass. I try again and realize with dread that my lift gate is stuck. Down but not defeated, I try the button to open the rear window. No luck.
I spend the next 10 minutes alternating between randomly hitting the FOB’s lock and unlock buttons, until I give up in a garage-filling string of expletives as I realize my kayak and I are SOL. Luckily, I did have a friend and an incredibly helpful REI employee there, whom all pitched in and managed to jam the kayak into the Suburban through the side door. I love my Suburban for reasons like this, though I’m slowly starting to hate GMC. More on this to come.
Here’s the Suburban with kayak inside and the lift gate panel on the floor. If you have a Suburban / Tahoe / Yukon in the same situation where your lift gate won’t open, the only way to get it open is to pry the lift gate panel just enough to access the locking mechanism. Take a long flat head screwdriver, slip it into the top section of the panel and start pulling away. The panel is made of a flexible plastic that will bend a fair amount, so don’t be afraid to put a bit of elbow into it. Once you see the locking mechanism, you’ll want to grip the back side that moves and twist counter-clockwise until the door pops open. Once you’ve done this, call GM customer service and tell them that their engineers should be fired for not having a manual release. If there is an accident / fire up front, wouldn’t you like it if your kids could escape out the back? Yeah, me too.
If you’re lucky enough that you can open your door (or maybe it doesn’t lock to begin with), then it’s a little easier to pull off the panel. First, take a socket wrench (9mm, I think) and remove the bolt under the leather handle on the inside of the door (the one you pull down on when your lift gate is up). After that, insert a flat head into the space between the panel and the door and pry open. There will be around 4 or 5 contact points to disconnect.
The two last things that stand in your way are plastic hinges that hold the panel to the door frame. With the lift gate open, push the panel toward the car, then spin it an entire half-circle around the hinge in the picture. After that, the panel should pull right out. Now the locking mechanism should be nicely exposed.
Here we see the lift gate handle at the bottom, which is connected by a tension wire to the locking mechanism. Pulling on the handle causes the wire at the top to retract toward the right, turning the locking mechanism counter-clockwise.
However, pulling the handle does nothing when the mechanism is in the locked position, because it doesn’t engage the other tension wire / tailgate release - it just simply moves by itself. When the mechanism is unlocked, pulling on the handle will engage the release mechanism and pop open the door… when the locking mechanism is working, that is.
Here is a properly unlocked door: notice that the black plastic piece (on top of the copper) is slid all the way to the right. You can see that if you rotate the lower copper piece, that it will force the black plastic piece to turn, thus engaging the door release.
Here is why your Suburban tailgate won’t unlock. I’ve just pressed the unlock button on my key FOB and you can see that the black plastic piece has NOT slid over to the right. This means that the door is still LOCKED as far as the mechanism is concerned. No amount of yanking on the handle will open the lift gate at this point.
Zooming in for a close-up, you can really see where the problem is. Gear heads will realize this is a major problem for all sorts of reasons. First, if your door lock actuator is banging against this metal part every time you unlock your door, it will wear out the part extremely fast and you’ve got yourself a busted door. Second, even if you replace your actuator, you’ll just bust it again if it keeps ramming this part. Most importantly, the question is how this is happening to begin with? My Suburban was working fine until I put in a factory replacement handle.
My opinion is that the factory GM replacement was defective and not built to spec, because the tensioner was now pulling a few millimeters more than it should have, which resulted in my lift gate not closing or unlocking. While millimeters might not mean anything to some cheap factory in China or Mexico, it means a whole lot of difference to the Joe Schmoe who wants to have a car that works. It may also be due to a small and very important spring that resets the lock back into place.
I’ve read a whole ton of reports about Suburban lift gates, along with Tahoes, Yukons and other GM cars failing and drivers stuck with unlockable doors. I believe this type of careless “few millimeters off isn’t important” BS is likely to blame. That’s why some people may have locks that work only half the time, or some work after their actuators are replaced, but fail soon afterward. My two-cent opinion - back to fixing cars.
So what we need to do, is make some space for that locking (technically, “unlock”) mechanism to engage fully. On my Suburban, this meant giving the metal tensioner just a little more slack - 2mm would be all I need.
First, I pushed the handle wire mechanism over to the right and then pulled out the metal ball and wire. After that, I pinched the blue wire cap and pushed it out of the metal holder.
You can now see that there is a lot of visible space between the locking mechanism and the metal. Pressing lock and unlock on my key FOB easily moved the unit back and forth successfully, so I knew it wasn’t a problem with the actuator. Now comes the disclaimer part.
DISCLAIMER: Attempt this section at your own risk, you are responsible for your own actions!!! Not seeing a lot of options, I decided I would take a somewhat drastic approach and bend the wire holder closer to the locking mechanism with a pair of pliers. I only needed about 2mm, so I felt this was acceptable without busting the car too much. Needless to say, this is not a graceful fix nor one I really wanted to do, but there appeared to be little other options other than cutting your own tensioner line (adjusting the line would be the most logical method, but I pinching and pulling got me no results) or finding some concrete way of bracing the line closer to the locking mechanism. If you come up with an elegant solution, please let me know.
Phew, finally - the fixed tailgate lock! You can see there is just enough room for the mechanism to engage and that the handle tension wire is snugly seated into its new home. I tested the lock about 100 times to be sure that everything was working as it should and I advise you do the same once you get to this point.
Now, simply put the panel back on the same way you took it off (don’t forget to screw the bolt back into the handle) and you’re done. Have a beer and go pat yourself on the back.
If this blog post has helped at all, I’d appreciate if you left a comment to share you experiences so others in the same situation can hear what you did. Thanks.
Related posts:
Thanks so much for your very helpful comments, photos, and suggestions. My 2006 Chevy suburban liftgate wasn’t unlocking and has no keyhole for a manual unlock (definitely a safety issue!). Anyway, my husband found your comments and after some wiggling and finesse we finally got it open and PRESTO bending that little thingie back did the trick. Appreciate you taking the time to put this on here for folks like me.
Thanks again!
Comment by Chris Venable — July 13, 2008 @ 7:09 pm
Thanks man!! If your ever in Austin Tx i owe ya a beer!!
Comment by chris — July 15, 2008 @ 6:05 pm
OHH and just to add: If your door is stuck locked, at least on our tahoe, it’s easier to get to the latch from the split in the back panel. It is exactly the right place to get to the latch.
Comment by chris — July 15, 2008 @ 6:07 pm
Wow. Thanks. My 2006 Tahoe is stuck right now, and I’m going to give it a try and come back to read more.
THEN, I want to organize some action media on this issue.
To me, this is as big as the Ford Pinto gas tank explosions of the 1970’s or the Ford Explorer rollovers in the 90’s.
I cannot believe:
1) there is no internal manual release
2) there is no keyhole activated handle (external) release.
Fire, flash flood, smoke, electricity hazards. GM should do something now in the way of recall or they will hit critical mass on class action lawsuits. It’s only been since the 2005 split gate tail, and many bad things have certainly happened because of this design and manufacturing flaw.
Great work. Thanks a million. I will keep you updated as to my plight.
Regards,
Dan
Comment by Dan Blackledge — August 4, 2008 @ 5:19 pm
I’m happy this has helped guys. It’s actually pretty eye-opening that this blog post is probably one of the most popular on the site. That means this problem is *big* and it’s a potential tragedy waiting to happen..
Comment by Grant — August 4, 2008 @ 5:49 pm
My 2006 Suburban hs been having intermittent problems with the lock not unlocking, and an awful noise when it tries to lock. It finally unlocked at lunch today and I have removed the panels as far as I can. I can now at least unlock the gate from the inside if necessary…
Thanks!
Comment by Will — August 14, 2008 @ 3:41 pm
Just found this site and am so frustrated with my 06 Yukon Denali…. I’ve had a few things go on it and of coarse now my back liftgate won’t unlock. Surprise!!! So it is right now at the dealer getting a new actuator. Does around $450 sound a lot to have it fixed? Wish I had found this article earlier….
Comment by Pattie — August 26, 2008 @ 5:40 am
Well, it’s a bit hard to say depending on what exactly is going wrong. Most shops charge $70 for the diagnostic, about a 50-100% markup on manufacturer parts (actuator goes for about $60) and another $70/hr for labor.
So, estimating on the high side, if it took two hours, you should be looking at $330 or so. Two hours should really cover just about anything going on back there (the actuator itself is straight forward and simple). If they’re doing anything else, that might make the difference — if not, then you’re probably overpaying. Get an itemized breakdown for parts and labor and make a stink if they’re saying it’ll be over a single hour just for the actuator or $120 for the part.
Comment by Grant — August 26, 2008 @ 8:26 am
I had my ‘06 Suburban tailgate to stop opening last weekend and had to then access through the back glass till in stopped opening as well. Today I finally got the time to run by the dealer. I was told I’d have to leave it for a day. I said I’d have to come back next week to leave it.
When I got back home I decided to see if I could find any answerers on the web to this problem. And so here I am. If so many people are having this problem then it should be a recall issue. I am getting ready to see if I can fix this thing and will post back. BTW thanks for taking the time by starting this thread we all owe you one.
Comment by David — September 19, 2008 @ 10:32 am
THANKS A BUNCH!! THIS WAS NOT MY PROBLEM THOUGH. MY ACTUATOR IS BAD, I THINK. IT JUST CLICKS AND DOES NOTHING. I REMOVED THE SLIDE PIECE AS SHOWN IN YOUR PICTURES AND THE MOTOR STILL DOES NOT TURN THE LITTLE GEAR. YOUR PICTURES SURE DID HELP ME THOUGH.
THANKS
Comment by Mike Campbell — October 2, 2008 @ 8:48 pm
have a 05 denali that does nothing when you lock or unlock doors, for the lift gate that is. took off rear panel and there is juice going to the locking part but it doesnt do anything or make a noise , would that be a bad actuator. thanks joey
Comment by joey — October 11, 2008 @ 4:27 pm
thanks, this was exactly what i was looking for cause i cant afford the dealer fix. this has been driving me crazy every time i go shopping or need to load something. good work.
Comment by tim zimmer — December 5, 2008 @ 7:09 am
@joey: Yeah, if it’s got juice and you’re not seeing any movement (e.g., your actuator arm isn’t engaging) then you need a new part unfortunately.
@tim: Cool, glad it helped!
Comment by Grant — December 5, 2008 @ 9:10 am
What a thorough and professional presentation you did here, you should be doing it for a living and making a good living for doing so! :-)
I am having problems w/my ‘91 GMC Suburban rear split doors not opening with the key or the auto lock; not the same issue as yours, but you gave me some direction and motivation to dig into the rear door panel and try to get at the lock mechanism from the inside anyway. Thank you!
Comment by Leo Horishny — January 17, 2009 @ 3:09 pm
Thanks for making the post. I actually have the opposite problem with my door staying unlocked and the glass won’t open when you push the button. Your detailed information has given me enough detail to take it apart and try to fix it myself though. Great job and thank you for taking the time to do it.
Comment by Bobby Reiter — March 10, 2009 @ 7:40 pm
My 05 Escalade just did this.I have a sub box that hides low behind the 3rd row and blocks there removal from the inside.This haults any ideas of removing the panels from the inside but all I did was unbolt the 2 11mm nuts that hold the glass handle on.That gave me access to the panel and the lock slider.
Unfortunately my actuator barely moves with the arm completely off.
Easy fix though considering.Much rather do this than a door actuator.
Comment by Terry — March 22, 2009 @ 11:45 pm
Thank you for taking the time to share your insight with us. You saved me a bunch of money. The last dealership I called said it would be around $350.00-450.00 to replace the whole unit. Thanks to your post, I am 350.00 richer!
My Suburban was haveing the same issues as stated above (Back liftgate was locked shut). Once I got everything pulled appart (Thanks to your Pics) I was able to see that my little black lever wasn’t moving when I pushed the unlock button. When I manually pushed on it to get it to slide all the way as the pics indicated above, something was binding? I ended up unscrewing the little black box, and there was a spring inside that had got stuck in one of the gear wheels (the spring looked like a tangled up slinky). I simply snipped off the tangled portion of the spring, rebent the end of it to catch on the black bar in stead of the gear, and put the black box back together. Everything worked great after this, the black slide had the full range of motion on both the lock and the unlock. Thanks again for the insight. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.
Comment by Rory — March 23, 2009 @ 8:01 am
RORY, I’m in the same boat as you.My delear wants to charge me $285 for the whole assembly!!!!!
My motor barely moves even with the arm off.I already had slack in the cable so that did not help.If you can explain your process any more in-depth that would be great.
Thx Terry
tgriffin36@cfl.rr.com
Comment by Terry — March 23, 2009 @ 2:33 pm
I took the black box apart and everything looks good in there.Grease where it should be and put it back together.It just won’t turn the gear enough when back together.I let the truck run to make sure voltage was up also.
I see no signs of damage in the box on the gears or any type of electrical short.All the springs are intact and grease.
Update and for anyone having my issue.
My motor would not turn the gear near enough to throw the lock.Here is what i did to make it work right.
There are TWO springs inside the black box.One is under the wheel and the other is part of the arm.When you see inside you will understand.I removed the spring that is part of the arm assembly.It provides resistance.It is green/black.I took that out and put everything back together and it works like it should.
Comment by Terry — March 23, 2009 @ 3:56 pm
I can’t beleive I actually found someone who had the same trouble. My tailgate stopped working last month, right after the warranty expired!!! I’ve had to put large things in the back through the back doors with a little manuevering. I was checking for recalls and nothing. Then I found your blog. I just took it into my mechanic this morning and he wasn’t sure what to do. I’m going to show him this. I don’t want to do it myself, because it would probably cost me more to fix it is I screw something up. Anyway this should help Steve out. Who knows someone else may come to him with the same issue and he’ll know how to fix it. I know it will cost me less at my mechanic than the dealer. I totally agree this should be recalled!!!! Thanks again for the post. :)
Comment by Terri Romine — April 17, 2009 @ 4:08 am
I am having the same problem but with this information i’m set. i am going to do it myself when i get home tonight. It should be a recall, we shouldn’t have to be going through this trouble after paying $36.000.00 for the unit.
Comment by Marty Lopez — May 18, 2009 @ 6:04 pm
Thank you for sharing this. If it weren’t for your blog - we would have ended up at the dealer spending $450. Although I didn’t have the exact problem - it was extremely close. I just needed to apply some pressure to the plastic locking mechanism to move it into the unlock position. It was stuck in the lock position and the remote was not triggering any activity to the actuator. Once I slightly forced the locking mechanism into “unlock” position - the liftgate began to open and close properly. We tried the remote again - low and behold it started working again. All is back to normal - at least for now. Thanks for sharing all this information. I had the problem resolved in 20 minutes or less.
Comment by DK — May 23, 2009 @ 7:12 pm
Very helpful … GM should repair these under warranty … what a safety hazard!
Comment by BDG — May 25, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
Thanks for taking the time to do this in detail. YOU are a person that cares and I really admire that!
Comment by larry — June 6, 2009 @ 4:10 pm
Thanks to the guy who removed the spring! I took apart the gear motor casing and took out both springs. The green one on the cam pivot and the black one on the worm driven gear. It was too weak with either one still there. Works slick now. I wonder if any other lock mechanisms use that same motor? Simple fix to swap the motor out. May have to look around for one.
Comment by Dennis — June 9, 2009 @ 1:57 am
Hello All,
Thanks for the info. My 2006 Suburban tailgate hatch just stopped working 2 weeks ago. I was going to hit the dealer today and then saw this blog. Great post.
My window back there wont open either when I hit the button tab. Why there is not a key entry lock or a handle inside is beside me. What a poor piece of engineering. I am going to crawl back there and see what is going on today.
This site gave me a start. Thank you all for the info. I will post back when I get it over with.
2006 CHEVROLET SUBURBAN TAILGATE HATCH LIFT GATE HANDLE REAR DOOR WILL NOT OPEN. WILL NOT UNLOCK RECALL IT CHEVY!
Matt
Comment by Matt — June 30, 2009 @ 6:03 pm
Mine had also stopped working, but could hear it trying. I saw this post and decided to remove the one internal round spring on the gear. Works slick. Saved $286. I recommend leaving the smaller (harder to reach) spring and that keeps the lock engaged or not engaged. Removing both springs could allow the arm to move during driving vibrations and either locking or unlocking the liftgate unintentionally.
Comment by John — July 2, 2009 @ 11:56 am
same problem 2006 chevy suburban, all of the sudden the trunk won open, it cliks but it just wont open…I think trying to fix this by myself is alot of trouble…I hope they make this a recall..I dont know if it has warrnty still so they can fix it..
Comment by jesus aguirre p — July 2, 2009 @ 4:08 pm