Power rear lift gate broke and then I lost the arm.. oops

Yeah, so this happened.

We got home today and the power lift gate just stopped working. We also could not close the door manually, nothing was budging. So that sucked.

As you can hopefully see on this video, I was only able to push the gate down a few inches before there was massive resistance to the point where it could no longer move.

https://imgur.com/a/6x4eoXS

I dont know if you can get sound on that but imagine just a ... resistance? noise. I would try to bring it down and it was just stopped. At first I thought it was the hydrolic arms holding the gate up but I unhooked the one on the left and it still wasn't moving so I came to it being the power arm.

I managed to pop off the lift gate arm as it was preventing the whole thing from shutting, but then when I popped off the inside clip the whole thing just slid down into a space that I didn't know existed. It was gone and I have no idea how to get it back. Oops.






Also, is this something that a regular person can repair or could there be a lot more damage someplace in the motor there that moves it up and down?

Door now closes though, manually. Locks and everything, so its functional, just the power part is no longer there and I wonder if I will ever see it again.

You could definitely take those inside trim pieces off. But I can't say how involved the process would be.

If you look up the threads for wiring the Mazda OEM trailer lights I believe there is a breakdown as to how to remove those parts. Since the harness from the factory is hidden below the trim it's necessary to remove quite a bit of it to access all the locations needed to route the wiring harness.

Will the SUV be okay to function without the power arm attached? Can it work as just a manual up and down or did that help keep it on? I dont want the whole back to fall off when driving or anything. I can still open and close it by hand but it feels a little floppier than it did before.

That part has nothing to do with keeping the hatch attached to the vehicle. It's just a push-rod to move the hatch. The hinges and the latch are what hold it in place so it's fine. The slop you feel is likely the lack of the damping effect of that rod and it's motor being in place.

Okay well at least that's good then.

I have to go take it to the mechanic to see if he can fix this or if it's something I need to go to the dealer for. I wonder how much this will set me back..

I would avoid the dealer if possible, just my personal preference. Funny enough a good body shop may also be able to help as they often have experience working in those areas more often than regular mechanics.

The sloppiness you feel when driving is probably the power arm moving around inside that trim panel since it's no longer fixed to the hatch. I've removed the rear panel (on the passenger side) to add wiring for the hitch, and it was pretty simple to do. I'd imagine the driver's side should be very similar. If it were me i'd probably open the panel first and see if there was something simple that went wrong on the arm. If I couldn't find anything, then i'd take it to a shop to diagnose.