Crunchy power tailgate mechanism

[graphnic]

My new-to-me V70 2013 facelift has the power tailgate. It opens smoothly (although sometimes drops at little at the end), but makes a crunchy grinding noise when it is closing, as if something is slipping. It appears to be coming from the left hand side.

I have tried lithium-greasing the hinges, but the noise is emanating from elsewhere.

Is this likely the struts or motor unit giving up? I've seen video on replacing the struts, but nothing on the rest of the mechanism.

Any thoughts welcome.

[graphnic]

Originally Posted by graphnic

My new-to-me V70 2013 facelift has the power tailgate. It opens smoothly (although sometimes drops at little at the end), but makes a crunchy grinding noise when it is closing, as if something is slipping. It appears to be coming from the left hand side.

I have tried lithium-greasing the hinges, but the noise is emanating from elsewhere.

Is this likely the struts or motor unit giving up? I've seen video on replacing the struts, but nothing on the rest of the mechanism.

Any thoughts welcome.

For anyone finding this post with the same problem, I have resolved it. My car has the later motor driven mechanism, as opposed to the hydraulic. I think it changed in 2013 but it may have been a little earlier.

The noise was originating from the motor drive which is next to the strut on the left had side. The issue was a simple one. The two has struts had lost their mojo. This was placing too much force on the motor drive when closing and was, I suspect, giving the gears a hard time. Replaced the two struts and all is smooth again. Note that on this motor driven version, the right strut is not the same as the left. The right has the big spring as per the old version, but the left is much smaller. Hope this helps someone.

Although the precision version, this video really helped with the process: https://youtu.be/2zsWRSEnxaA