Passat Estate Tailgate Problem

[willy100]

Hi,

I have an Estate 2.3 V5 and the central locking has failed on the tailgate. It's locked in the closed position and I can see no way of gaining entry to this part of the car to try and remedy the problem. Is there any way of manually releasing the door, so I can remove the panel to investigate the problem? I've crawled through interior of the car, but there seems no way of removing the panel with the tailgate closed.

Please help!

Thank you.

[NickW]

Hello,

Dont you have a lock on the underside where the button to open the tailgate is?

You should be able to open it with the key.


Nick.

[willy100]

There is a lock on the tailgate but it doesn't seem to mechanically release the door, it just operates the central locking or dead-locks the door (opens/closes windows).

[davec]

You can turn the key lock to a third position which mechanically releases the tailgate lock mechanism.

I found that the release handle which is under the moulded handle you open the tailgate with had seized but you could still open the tailgate by one person unlocking it on the drivers door switch and another immediately opening the tailgate using the normal handle on the tailgate.

[willy100]

I resolved the problem by climbing inside the rear of the car and partially removing the large peice of plastic trim on the lower part of the tailgate. The two top scres could not be accessed with the door closed, so I had to bend the plastic, squeeze my arm in and feel for the mechanism. It transpires that the solenoid had stopped working probably due to dirt and lack of lubrication. At least the DIY approach saved a few pounds as I expect the local VW dealer would have been charging a lot of money for that repair.

As to the lock mechanically releasing the door, I just can't get that part to work. The lock on the tailgate turns anti-clock to unlock the central locking, clock-wise (to 1 O'clock) to lock central locking and clock-wise again (to 3 O'clock) to dead-lock the tailgate. There seems to be no way to mechanically release the door.

[davec]

I found there was a little actuator in the off side of the tailgate. When you go to open the tailgate from the drivers door it pulls a cable which unlatches the tailgate lock, but it only unlocks for about three seconds and then releases back to a latched position. When you squeeze the release handle it actuates this actuator again and allows you to open the tailgate