SUV Tailgate Quandary

[Mr. Jelly]

I was wondering how those auto tail gates react to being manually pushed. I thought that they would have a sensor to close themselves if you manually pushed them.

[Neil K Walk]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

I was wondering how those auto tail gates react to being manually pushed. I thought that they would have a sensor to close themselves if you manually pushed them.

FWIW I had a delivery person push mine closed one day. I could hear the gearing on the motors whining in protest; completely different than on my old Odyssey which just had the pneumatic pistons. After having driven vehicles (mainly GMs) where I had power window motors fail I figured it was not a good sound and since then have been proactive to tell them "I'll get it" when they hesitate. Better safe than sorry.

[rllink]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

I was wondering how those auto tail gates react to being manually pushed. I thought that they would have a sensor to close themselves if you manually pushed them.

That would be good. With my Escape you are supposed to be able to open it and close it by waving a foot under the back of the car but evidently the factory hitch covers the sensor. When we were visiting my son last summer he had a load of stuff in his arms that he wanted to put in the Escape for us to take home and he was standing behind it swinging and kicking under the back of the car, stumbling all over and cursing it because the hatch wouldn't come open. If I had been thinking fast I would have gotten a video.

Originally Posted by Neil K Walk

FWIW I had a delivery person push mine closed one day. I could hear the gearing on the motors whining in protest; completely different than on my old Odyssey which just had the pneumatic pistons. After having driven vehicles (mainly GMs) where I had power window motors fail I figured it was not a good sound and since then have been proactive to tell them "I'll get it" when they hesitate. Better safe than sorry.

Yes, my Escape is like that too. You have to fight it to get it to come down manually. It feels and sounds like something you shouldn't be doing.