Tailgate won’t close completely

[ExVolt]

Sometimes when we use the foot gesture to open the tailgate, it only opens about 2 inches and then stops. Today this happened to my partner and rather than physically lifting the tailgate the rest of the way, he tried to re-close it. It didn’t close completely. Now, the car senses the tailgate is still open because there is about a 5 mm gap between a completely closed tailgate and where it is now.

This has happened a few times and we’ve always been able to muscle it open by pushing the tailgate release button on the rear of the car and then lifting it manually. Today our muscles were not sufficient and our tailgate is 5 mm open. We can neither close it or open it.

The symptoms are:
- Tailgate is very slightly open (5mm).
- None of the buttons (key, screens, arm rest) will open or close it now. So it is resting in the slightly open state.
- Because of this, the warning in tube c on the instrument cluster is constant and the beeping is loud as it detects the tailgate is open. See below for image.
- we cannot lock the car as it thinks the tailgate is open

We were close to our Porsche dealership when this last happened (today) so we decided to drive by and see if they could help us. I thought there must be an emergency latch release panel in the trunk, but I couldn’t find it and there’s nothing in the manual. The Saturday technicians couldn’t find it either, and they were not able to help us.

If anyone has a suggestion, we are all ears. We will be taking it back to the dealer on Monday if we can’t figure it out before then.

 

[dgkhn]

This is probably just a dumb suggestion, but no harm done if so: have you tried just holding the hatch release button in for several seconds--this happened to be the solution when my Subaru Forester hatch suddenly decided to stop operating (in that case I believe it was 10 seconds).

 

[krissrock]

I would also try simply disconnecting the 12v for a min

 

[ExVolt]

This is probably just a dumb suggestion, but no harm done if so: have you tried just holding the hatch release button in for several seconds--this happened to be the solution when my Subaru Forester hatch suddenly decided to stop operating (in that case I believe it was 10 seconds).

I tried, but didn’t help. It actually tries to open as I can hear the mechanism engage, I can also feel it trying to lift if I put my hand on the trunk. But it sounds like something catches in the locking mechanism and it gives up. And the trunk is still ever so slightly open (may 2 mm). Here’s a photo showing how minor it is opened:

 

[ExVolt]

I would also try simply disconnecting the 12v for a min

I’m nervous to try this. But thanks for the suggestion.

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