ISO RX450h tailgate motor/ activator

[Kate2140]

Hi all

After struggling with our tailgate on our RX450h not opening (no beeps or lights in the boot either), a diagnostic expert has come to the conclusion that the tailgate motor/activator (the motor in the headlining on the passenger side) needs replacing. Lexus wants over £900 +VAT for the part 😩

We can find loads on eBay for the Mk2 version, but need the Mk3 (2009-2015) version.  Any possible leads we find that a scrap yard may have one have come to nothing and the only one we can find is in Lithuania (long time to post - circa a month, plus all the VAT and custom charges post Brexit).  Does anyone know where I can source a second hand part?

Part number is probably 427110-10648, photo attached

Thanks in advance!

K

[Malc]

Have you tried Amayama .............. or Rockauto in the USA ?

that's where we go for our best value and genuine OEM  Ls400 spares these days

Malc

[Herbie]

Hang fire a bit Kate and look in the other topics dealing with this.

There must be at least half a dozen people, if not more, who are having the exact same problem so we're trying to find a common cause.

Have a read of this topic:

EDIT: I see that you're already participating in it. Well, from other topics, Lithuania is the best place to get replacements unless you want to go for brand new. Good luck and please continue to participate and let us know if you manage to make any progress.

 

[Herbie]

Kate, did your diagnostics expert give you any more detail about what LED him to his conclusion?

Specifically, did he give you any diagnostic trouble code that he'd found?

There's one person so far who has the DTC U0230 and I want to see how many others, if any, also have that code.

[Kate2140]

He didn’t tell me if he had a code, but I can ask. What he did say is that he tried all the electrics and they were all fine, so it was a process of elimination that it’s only the motor that could have failed. 

We have been pouring over all the posts here, tried what we think is everything, with no success, hence why we took it to a diagnostics expert 

[Kate2140]

Thanks Malc, we’ve found ones from the UAE for less than £300 🥳

[Herbie]

25 minutes ago, Kate2140 said:

He didn’t tell me if he had a code, but I can ask.

Yes please, that would be very helpful.

25 minutes ago, Kate2140 said:

so it was a process of elimination that it’s only the motor that could have failed. 

This is where I'm skeptical. One motor failure, ok; two, maybe - but more than half a dozen? I really don't know.

Of course, it could be right but why are they failing and what's the correlation to the luggage area lights not working?

[Kate2140]

18 minutes ago, Herbie said:

Of course, it could be right but why are they failing and what's the correlation to the luggage area lights not working?

I think the motor contains the ECU so the connection to the lights fail... but no idea really. 

[steveledzep]

15 minutes ago, Herbie said:

Yes please, that would be very helpful.

This is where I'm skeptical. One motor failure, ok; two, maybe - but more than half a dozen? I really don't know.

Of course, it could be right but why are they failing and what's the correlation to the luggage area lights not working?

I'm with you on this Herbs, I don't accept the failure of multiple motors simultaneously.  Similarly, I don't see failure of all the switch mechanisms on the vehicle simultaneously.  In my intermittent thread, I report that I prised the lowering switch from the underside of the tailgate.  There are only two wires going to this switch and the circuit should always be live...it was dead !  The common factor that I see is a flat auxiliary Battery to trigger the tailgate failures.  I guess that the LOC has a small percentage of all RX owners, I wonder how many there are UK wide ?  Is this a "not fit for purpose" issue for Lexus to address ? 

[Kate2140]

13 minutes ago, steveledzep said:

I'm with you on this Herbs, I don't accept the failure of multiple motors simultaneously.  Similarly, I don't see failure of all the switch mechanisms on the vehicle simultaneously.  In my intermittent thread, I report that I prised the lowering switch from the underside of the tailgate.  There are only two wires going to this switch and the circuit should always be live...it was dead !  The common factor that I see is a flat auxiliary battery to trigger the tailgate failures.  I guess that the LOC has a small percentage of all RX owners, I wonder how many there are UK wide ?  Is this a "not fit for purpose" issue for Lexus to address ? 

We charged up our aux Battery, still nothing. So this wasn’t our issue. 

[KenMavor]

6 hours ago, Kate2140 said:

Hi all

After struggling with our tailgate on our RX450h not opening (no beeps or lights in the boot either), a diagnostic expert has come to the conclusion that the tailgate motor/activator (the motor in the headlining on the passenger side) needs replacing. Lexus wants over £900 +VAT for the part 😩

We can find loads on ebay for the Mk2 version, but need the Mk3 (2009-2015) version.  Any possible leads we find that a scrap yard may have one have come to nothing and the only one we can find is in Lithuania (long time to post - circa a month, plus all the VAT and custom charges post Brexit).  Does anyone know where I can source a second hand part?

Part number is probably 427110-10648, photo attached

Thanks in advance!

K

Part number is probably 427110-10648, photo attached.

That does not look like a normal Toyota/Lexus part number...usually 5 numbers followed by 5 numbers......

[Kate2140]

33 minutes ago, KenMavor said:

Part number is probably 427110-10648, photo attached.

That does not look like a normal Toyota/Lexus part number...usually 5 numbers followed by 5 numbers......

Yes thank you! Thanks to the first comment we’ve found the proper part number (68910-48033 or 68910-0E024 - in case anyone else looks for one)

[steveledzep]

1 hour ago, Kate2140 said:

We charged up our aux battery, still nothing. So this wasn’t our issue. 

Maybe I didn't word it correctly Kate.  What I mean is that the Battery going flat in the first place is the trigger for the problem.  I charged mine and eventually replaced my auxiliary Battery.  I still have the problem.

I think the common denominator between all here with the problem is that it started with a flat Battery first of all.

[Walus]

3 hours ago, steveledzep said:

Maybe I didn't word it correctly Kate.  What I mean is that the battery going flat in the first place is the trigger for the problem.  I charged mine and eventually replaced my auxiliary battery.  I still have the problem.

I think the common denominator between all here with the problem is that it started with a flat battery first of all.

Steve, while I agree there seems to be a correlation between Battery failures and issues with the tailgates, the latter might not necessarily be caused by the former. There could be another unknown factor that causes both i.e. an intermittent short on the ECU board draining the Battery and ultimately causing the ECU failure.

There also seems to be the possibility that moisture and aging effects take place and over time, especially when the boot and therefore tailgate is not in use, bad contact sets in. It has been raining almost every day for the past 2 weeks here and I did not use the car much in that period. Because my issue is intermittent I will use the tailgate multiple times during the next few days (2-3 cycles at the time) to let the motor run hotter than it normally does. I'll see if that has any effect. 

[steveledzep]

I can't disagree with what you say Tom.  My problem started off intermittent, but PBD hasn't worked for weeks now.  Just wish a simple fix can be found.

[Kate2140]

So I managed to speak to someone in Lexus parts and asked if it was a common part requested. He says Lexus doesn’t have frequent issues, but he does get asked for this part semi frequently and it could be considered one of the most common issues. He didn’t know the exact causes, but suggested age and others thought that pulling down on the boot rather than use the electrics causes the motor to over heat and fail. 
he also corrected our part number (why is it so hard?!?) to 68910-48023 for our 2012 (61 reg) rx450h 

We tried Lexus and other parts companies, but they all stated a 3-4 week delivery time (obvs coming from UAE or US). So we’ve gone direct with amayama (part from UAE) and hopefully saved ourselves some money (£300 inc delivery, but likely need to pay VAT and customs), despite not saving ourselves any time 

best of luck with anyone else going insane with this issue. Hope the above info helps someone

[Malc]

9 minutes ago, Kate2140 said:

and hopefully saved ourselves some money

when I was buying UCAs for my Ls400 I found the actual delivered price was 

Amayama list price say £100, PLUS about a 100% uplift in cost by virtue of carriage / delivery, Customs Duty and VAT and the Royal Mail £12 ? handling charge for the documentation .................  still then only about 50% of UK Lexus / Toyota price tho'

Malc

[Herbie]

16 minutes ago, Kate2140 said:

So I managed to speak to someone in Lexus parts and asked if it was a common part requested. He says Lexus doesn’t have frequent issues, but he does get asked for this part semi frequently and it could be considered one of the most common issues. He didn’t know the exact causes, but suggested age and others thought that pulling down on the boot rather than use the electrics causes the motor to over heat and fail. 
he also corrected our part number (why is it so hard?!?) to 68910-48023 for our 2012 (61 reg) rx450h 

We tried Lexus and other parts companies, but they all stated a 3-4 week delivery time (obvs coming from UAE or US). So we’ve gone direct with amayama (part from UAE) and hopefully saved ourselves some money (£300 inc delivery, but likely need to pay VAT and customs), despite not saving ourselves any time 

best of luck with anyone else going insane with this issue. Hope the above info helps someone

Great news,I hope it works out well for you Kate.

When you fit the new part I wonder if you may be willing to let someone on here have your old one to strip down and see if we can find a cause?

[Kate2140]

1 minute ago, Herbie said:

Great news,I hope it works out well for you Kate.

When you fit the new part I wonder if you may be willing to let someone on here have your old one to strip down and see if we can find a cause?

Will make sure we keep the part and come back here and offer it up 

[Herbie]

4 minutes ago, Kate2140 said:

Will make sure we keep the part and come back here and offer it up 

Brilliant, thank you.

[Herbie]

I know it's extremely unlikely to be as simple as this but surely it has to be worth a try.

As I said earlier my power back door is working alright so I can't test this on my own car, so would someone with the problem care to try it and let us know how you go on?

[granadaman]

Just to throw this in the mix mine went faulty 2 years ago for about two weeks start of January then worked rest of year. Soon as it went dead cold last year same problem for a few weeks. This year  absolutely nothing so far so it weird. But when I was stripping the car to try find out where the issue was 2 years ago I moved 2 of the square relays in the engine bay and the pbd worked for one go and died again, so not an input power problem to the motor as others have said all ideas point to the pbd electronics.

[Kate2140]

Thanks everyone for your help on this. We tried to get the part via amayama, but after waiting 2 weeks they cancelled the order as they said they couldn’t get the part. 
we then found someone in UAE on eBay (triplecreations) who finally got us the part (£350 inc postage, and he labelled it cheap enough we didn’t pay duties), £200 to diagnose and fit. A lot better than Lexus direct who were also a 3-4 week wait for the part. 
part in the car and it works now. What a relief. 

we have the old part if any one local wants to try to find the issue (but honestly believe it’s because we used to manually close it half the time). We’re in bishops stortford

[Herbie]

Glad to hear that you've got it sorted Kate, well done.

I think @ColinBarber and another person were willing to have a go at diagnosing one of the faulty ECUs, so hopefully one or the other will come forward and contact you about it.

I don't claim to be an expert in faultfinding to component level but if the other guys have changed their minds, I'll make arrangements with you to get it up here and see what I can do. I think we should give it maybe a week and if we've had no volunteers by then, I'll contact you.

[serbarry]

For those who do not know you may try traynors.co.uk for spare parts, they are car dismantlers in UK. Sorry for not saying earlier but I just read this discussion.