Rear door on RX not working.

[roger889]

I have noted that there are a few strings on here about the back door, tailgate on RX vehicles not operating. I have had a RX 300, RX 400h and now run a RX 450h. I've had a couple of saloons in between. A 400LS and a 430LS, great cars. To get back to the RX 450h tailgate it seems to stop operating in cold, damp weather. The car itself is susceptible to condensation inside, there is water running down the inside of the windscreen when it is really bad. Lexus tried to sell me a new lift motor on one of my services saying it needed changing, but I declined. One of the technicians came over to me when I was leaving and showed me where the motor was inside the roof lining. He said if it was unplugged and plugged in again as they had done, it would work. I have since tried that but to no effect. I suspect that it worked for them because it was in a nice warm garage for over an hour and had time to dry out. Since then I pulled the roof lining down and put a warm air gun inside blowing on the motor for about 20mins and hey presto the tailgate lifts. After a couple of days of cold and damp it stopped working again, thus proving there's nothing wrong with the motor apart from it doesn't like cold, damp weather.

[Bluemarlin]

Given that you're experiencing a lot of condensation, it would suggest that you have a leak somewhere that is causing the interior to get damp/wet, which in turn is then affecting your tailgate motor connection.

If it were me I would check all carpets and under boot/battery areas for signs of water ingress and then try to trace where the leak is coming from. If you can stop  water getting in, and dry out the interior, then I suspect it will resolve both your condensation and tailgate issues.

There are a number of threads on water ingress for the RX, so you might want to check those out as well as the tailgate ones.