Powered tailgate problems

[Watchman]

ML320CDI MY2008

Tailgate hasn't been up to the normal German reliability standards for a while. It sometimes needs a couple of attempts before it'll even start to close but until this weekend it always did close.

NOw it won't latch at all. The latching has become noisy for a while - as though it's taking a couple of goes before it catches. Then recently it failed but opening and re-closing sorted it. Now (tonight) it won't latch at all.

I can't get at the mechanism to see what might be up - the plastic interior panelling has no obvious way in.

Any ideas or advice please?

[Watchman]

Yes, that's exactly the problem I have - it used to "try" to latch, and sometimes fail. Now it's making no attempt at all.

I have no warranty. I guess I'm in for a few hundred then.

[Watchman]

Well I'm £462 lighter today. New latch and some buggery pokery to remove one of the hinge bolts that had sheered.

Ouch.

Porsche Cayenne next I guess... But I'm under no disillusions that it'll be any cheaper to own.

[Watchman]

It's that "pulling closed" bit that failed on mine. That's the latch mechanism. Forums are alight with people's tales of woe regarding these.

[Watchman]

They took longer than I had expected fixing it (although I'm not complaining - they did book me in for next day when I rang after 5pm) so I wasn't in the mood to argue about keeping the old latch, but I would have been interested to see what had failed. I can't help wonder if it's all powered by plastic gears or some other under-developed nonsense.

[Watchman]

I eventually replaced the 2008 ML with a 2011 GL, also with a powered tailgate which has been fine so far. It’s now up to 73K miles.