lextoys

Here's a bunch of pictures. This is not my area of expertise, but I'm mechanical enough to be dangerous, but not competent. haha. I believe the beige components are the relays and I assume there's one each for dash button, key fob button, and trunk lid buttons, but that's an assumption. Background:

1. Door was misbehaving with lift supports from lift support depot. I don't recommend these.
2. Replaced with Lexus factory supports and it seemed to work fine for a while.
3. Key fob trunk release failed first. Would pop trunk (via lock latch at bumper) but not raise or lower.
4. Then hatch buttons failed
5. Then dash button failed (all failed within a day or so of each other)
6. Reset on/off in glovebox did nothing
7. Fuse was fine in engine compartment
8. Found your video, it was awesome and so well done. Took me an hour to carefully get everything out.
9. Took motor to a specialty shop here in Phoenix that does all kinds of window motor repairs on cars from all over the world. Owner was awesome and said he thought relays. He put some power to the motor via a dewalt battery jumped to the connector on the circuit board and the arm moved fine. He said he didn't do relays and it would cost too much to mess with vs just buying a new motor.
10. Then took the board to another guy I found who does all kinds of circuit board repairs for electronics, including Lexus dealers around the country and he suggested that I do the following before he charges me to diagnose: Take the board and just hook it up to the wiring harness in the roof of the car without the motor and try to activate it with key fob. When I did that, the board itself made a loud beep. So this seems to indicate it's getting some kind of signal but not able to relay it to the motor to activate. Now we know the motor works when "hotwired" to an external battery so the assumption is bad relays of some sort, I believe. I haven't been back to this guy yet to get a quote on testing/fixing.
11. I recognize that I should've just bitten the bullet and put a new motor in like you did, but now I'm annoyed and I want to figure out and fix what's wrong. Not smart, but what can I say? hahaha
12. Other question is the part number from 10-12 (part 689100E024) is different vs. 13-15 (689100E025 or 26)....looks the same, but worried the harness or specs may be different in some way so the 13-15 part new is like $50 cheaper online than the 10-12 part.

AlgoTrader

I bought the entire unit (motor, gears, frame, circuit board "black box") used for $125. Mine came out of a '15 RX that had only a few thousand miles on it. Car-part.com

lextoys

Yeah, I can't seem to find any under 275....car-part.com's search functions don't seem that efficient. What term did you use to find it?

Scratch that...found a term that works, "trunk lid pull down motor"....didn't see that previously. Thxs for heads up.

AlgoTrader

I found the email where they responded to my quote request. I paid $100 back in may of 2020, plus 15 to 25 for shipping.

I don't recall the precise terms I used, but here is my best guess as to what I did back in May: I searched for power lift gates, and contacted wrecking yards that had RX350 (and RX450h) that had cars with power lift gates and asked them to quote me the motor.

Here are the details from the email response I received:

CPQuotes@car-part.com

Sun, May 10, 2020, 5:14 PM

to me

You submitted the following information to: sales@AugustPohl.com
(This email is for your records only. Please do not reply.)
===========================================

----------------------------
Quote Summary
----------------------------
Quote Type : Consumer
Quote# : 05/10/2020-18:08:50-1000-13000000076519788-1000
Part Price : $100
Shipping Price :
Total Price :

----------------------------
Supplier's Information
----------------------------
Supplier : August Pohl Auto Parts
Address : 2225 South M 139
City : Benton Harbor
State/Province/Country : MI
Postal Code : 49022
Phone Number : 269-471-0440
Contact Name : Mike Lieberman
Email Address : sales@AugustPohl.com

----------------------------
Part Information
----------------------------
Year : 2015
Model : Lexus RX350
Part : Lid/Gate Assembly
Stock Number : 19240
Condition : 10.0hr(s)
Description : ELEC,PWR LIFT ASSM ONLY
Part Price : 100

lextoys

Great info..."Trunk Lid Pull Down Motor" seems to find some....now to call them and see if they are actually in stock. Really appreciate the heads up and your prior posts. I've been a Club Lexus lurker for a long time (owned various Lexus vehicles since 2007) and it's such a great community. I hope my posts helped as well in terms of understanding the issues. Thanks!

AlgoTrader

Try hatch/trunk lid, power lift, with or without camera

also try
gate/lid
or
rear gate/lid

AlgoTrader

that particular term yielded the option to define "non-interchange, Lexus only" and the choice to select a year range. I advise 2013 to 2015 or 2010 to 2012 depending on which "version" RX you have.

AlgoTrader

Glad we could help.

One other bit of advise: find a liftgate motor assembly out of a lower mileage car, even if its a bit more money. It will have less opening/closing cycles on it.
Changing these things is kind of a pain, and my ceiling liner took a bit of a beating in the process.

lextoys

Definitely...was thinking the same thing. Wish I could be sure the 15 would work, but I'm not sure so I have to find a low mileage 2012. Would hate to buy a 2015 and have the harness not match or something absurd. Yes, that motor is a bear to get out without damaging the headliner. Unsnapping my wiring harness almost made me lose my mind....pro tip...do it before you start removing the bolts that holds the motor to the roof....there's so little slack in the wiring that you can't have the weight of the motor putting any stress on connection or it seems even harder to unclip.

AlgoTrader

Regarding your idea of repairing the PCBA (printed circuit board assembly): de-soldering and soldering on new relays would not be that hard. The hardest part would be finding exact matches for the old relays. Octopart is a good source to search for electronic components.

I think I threw my old unit in the trash, so I don't have the option of trying to repair it. Back when I bought my replacement unit, I briefly considering swapping over the motor and PCBA/box. I elected not to as I didn't have the time to mess with it.

lextoys

You're right, at $125 for a replacement, not worth the effort...I may try it on my old one after the new/used part arrives, just for fun/learning.

Shnewzhere

Lextoys, those relays are only $10 new on eBay. Relays can definitely fail and that may be the case for all these actuators going out. One question I have though, did the business that tested the motor have a load on it? If the motor is on its way out, it doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t move at all. I still have a feeling it might be the motor itself, but I’d be REALLY curious to see if anyone is able to just change out their relays, it’s a lot cheaper fix and a fairly easy soldering job. https://www.ebay.com/itm/TAIKO-RTH2-...-/361996249290

Also, according to Rockauto, the PDB 001 is compatible with 2012-2015, you’re right. I want to say that I thought I saw it was compatible with 2010-2011, but I must be wrong. I guess I’ll have to change my video title. Thanks for the call out!

lextoys

Shnewzhere. You're right, they are inexpensive. He did not check the motor with a load on it, so you're right, it may still be good enough to move the arm unloaded and also have bad relays which would make the relay replacement moot. I'm not much of a soldering guy, so that might be a disaster of a project for me to even try. If I can track down a good used one, I'd rather take the risk with that at this point. One note, I used the lift depot struts maybe 4 years ago when the original Lexus struts failed. They worked fine and then started to fail. At that point, I replaced with Lexus struts again which worked great but then the hatch failed completely about 8 weeks later. Starting to wonder if the lift depot struts are the root cause over the years and it's the motor and the relays being stressed over the years and finally failing? Also wondering if Lexus did something to beef up the motors in 2013-2015 vs. the 2010-2012 range per my part number note earlier. The silver Denso piece that looks like a capacitor or something has different numbers written on it in the newer Lexus part number (ending in 25 or 26 for the 2013-2015's) vs. the "24" part number for the 2010-2012's.

Elofeye

It looks like they sell 3 different brands for the lift gate. Do you remember that brand that you used?

RX in NC

StrongArm makes some of the best hood and hatch struts in the industry. I have a pair of their hood struts on my wife's 2015 RX350 (installed in October 2019 after the mediocre factory ones began to get weak). When the time comes for hatch struts, it will get a pair of StrongArms as well.