Silver Kugel

Everything was working, and then I go out of town. Wife goes shopping and fills up the cargo area with "stuff she needed" and she gets home and cannot open the liftgate or the window. Marital bliss...

Specific symptoms now that I am home and can troubleshoot:

Liftgate closes properly -- mine has the soft close option -- gently close and the little motor whirs and brings it fully shut. (the little motor is in the body and attached to the latch striker bar and draws the striker bar lower after the latch mechanism in the liftgate has closed around the striker bar)

Now the problems start.

First, from this normally closed state, the window will not open/release. Not with the button on the wiper, nor with either keyfob. (actually, it does not open when the liftgate is closed, stuck as described below, OR open -- no click, nothing)

Second, when trying to open the full liftgate, pressing the button on the liftgate handle, the whirring sound occurs and the door opens a couple mm, however the latch solenoid never kicks the latch open. To add insult to injury, now you cannot close the liftgate from this half open position because the soft close "whirring" mechanism will not receive the "I-was-open-now-I-am-closed" signal from the latch. Big assed warning light on instrument cluster greets you with a key turning in the ignition.

To open the liftgate, drop rear seats, pop square access hatch and manually open latch with lever. Shine flashlight up in latch mechanism, but no debris or anything that could get in the way.

Theory:

Because neither the window solenoid, nor the latch solenoid work (both of which are in the liftgate itself), I am guessing that they are on the same circuit. Even if our German friends put an interlock on the window latch system, I can close the liftgate normally after manually opening it -- so there should be nothing of an interlock that would register an error after this normal closure.

I looked at the manual fuse descriptors and found nothing that said "latch" or anything obvious. So I pulled every single fuse in the interior fuse block to inspect -- not a single one blown.

Now I am stumped. My next step would be to disassemble the door on the basis that there is a short or open in the wiring somewhere, but maybe some good people here have had a similar problem?

Googled for more than an hour on "liftgate", "hatch", "tailgate", etc. Only found this thread that seems to be the exact same problem -- but no one ever posted a solution:
https://rennlist.com/forums/porsche-...on-t-open.html

Also found a post on an '09 that had almost the same problem due to a burnt Fuse #31 -- which my '06 does not have that circuit...

Anyone?

Thanks,

Dave

Silver Kugel

bump...

Silver Kugel

So it turns out that when I said I pulled every fuse to check, seems I was thinking I was working on an American automobile that would only have one fuse block on the driver's side (someday I will share the story of rewiring a '76 Monte Carlo with Romex and BUSS fuses...)

Silly me, didn't think to read the detail about the RIGHT side of the dash. Sure enough, Fuse #31 on the passenger side fuse block was blown. Replaced and works...

Thanks to the following thread that finally pounded me between the eyes with the obvious...

https://rennlist.com/forums/cayenne-955-957-2003-2010/689322-porsche-cayenne-tailgate-hatch-will-not-open-fixed.html

porschefan931

I'm glad you got it sorted and posted the resolution. I'm sure someone will have this issue in the future (probably me) and this nugget will save us all some headaches.