Liftgate wont open when cold

cjpwalleye · November 29, 2019

I have a new 2019 Suburban and when it below 20 degrees the lift gate won’t open. I know that there is a “lockout” around 4 degrees F to prevent motor damage but this thing won’t open when it’s 20 degrees. My last Sub also had this “feature” but at least it would work if the interior was warm and if all else failed you could just pull the door up. I can’t seem to open this door manually when this happens. That puts me out of a tailgate for basically the entire winter as I live in MN and 20 is warm. Can this temp set point be altered somehow? Any suggestions? Thanks.

The Zip · November 30, 2019

On 11/28/2019 at 5:18 PM, cjpwalleye said:

I have a new 2019 Suburban and when it below 20 degrees the lift gate won’t open....I can’t seem to open this door manually when this happens.

If the liftgate does not open because of cold weather, the manual says to "select OFF on the liftgate switch".

SUB2018 · December 9, 2020

Turning the liftgate switch to off does not fix this problem. I have a 2018 Suburban and its doing the same thing when below freezing. Any other thoughts on this would be appreciated.

George100 · December 9, 2020

There may be more going on than cold weather, my manual does not give a temp and it does say the word 'may' I would check the Liftgate module with a scan tool and see if there are any issues in there. No codes would be appearing on the dash. I live in Canada which regularly gets below 0 F, and i have never had any issues using the power lift gate. Sometimes I would have a problem with the sensor for your foot when the ice gets under there. The fob usually takes care of the opening. It may be different as i have the 17 Suburban with Premier Trim level so they may have made changes in the 18 and up.

Mandalorian · December 15, 2020

It's under warranty, sounds like the dealer's problem to solve

Mikey999 · December 27, 2020

My liftgate works well below freezing

MoreNorth · December 24, 2022

@cjpwalleye @SUB2018 Did you get any resolution on this issue? Our 2017 just started doing the same thing, if its 25 degrees outside, we are not able to open the tailgate. Turning on or off the power liftgate feature does not change it. In a heated garage it works fine. Very frustrating, i can't seem to find any info on this problem.

slj2008 · December 24, 2022

GM has a Service Notice - If it get to cold , turn power off , and lift tail gate manualy, Make sure you hold it up, so it wont drop on your head. This was on my 2008 tahoe .

PeteTM2 · December 25, 2022

On 12/23/2022 at 11:40 PM, MoreNorth said:

@cjpwalleye @SUB2018 Did you get any resolution on this issue? Our 2017 just started doing the same thing, if its 25 degrees outside, we are not able to open the tailgate. Turning on or off the power liftgate feature does not change it. In a heated garage it works fine. Very frustrating, i can't seem to find any info on this problem.

Old thread but clearly still a problem. I have a 2017 Tahoe and experiencing this is SC with the unusually cold weather. Console switch in off position, lift gate will unlock but will only lift a few inches manually before resistance is felt. Initially noticed at about 9°F and worked normally earlier/warmer in the day. Over freezing today so will try and see if it is resolved and will let you know. Curious if putting it in manual before the freeze would have helped. Any advise form colder regions to help a frosty southerner would be greatly appreciated .

MoreNorth · December 26, 2022

23 hours ago, PeteTM2 said:

Old thread but clearly still a problem. I have a 2017 Tahoe and experiencing this is SC with the unusually cold weather. Console switch in off position, lift gate will unlock but will only lift a few inches manually before resistance is felt. Initially noticed at about 9°F and worked normally earlier/warmer in the day. Over freezing today so will try and see if it is resolved and will let you know. Curious if putting it in manual before the freeze would have helped. Any advise form colder regions to help a frosty southerner would be greatly appreciated .

Turning the switch off before it gets to freezing does not change the problem. Our 2017 Yukon XL has the issue as you describe above, and the console switch makes no difference whatsoever. For us, last year it worked fine, even down to about -5 F, this year, 28 F and it doesn't work, have to stuff the Yukon in the garage and let it warm up. Since we can't open it manually, which would be fine, its really hard dropping the kids off at the ski hill right now.

Any guidance would certainly be appreciated before I start swapping out parts randomly

PeteTM2 · December 26, 2022

Yea that blows. There must be a work around for this “feature.” You’d think there would be an alert or a light when the computer is stopping the lift gate from working. At least then you would know if it’s broken or just temporarily disabled. Dash tells me that there may be ice on the road but not that I can’t use the lift gate… Ours has worked fine now that we’re above freezing but would love to know to know if there’s a fix. Thanks for the reply.

MoreNorth · February 13

Well, in case anyone is interested, or runs into this later, it was the lift gate actuators, which are also the spring arms. They cost around 300 bucks, from the dealer, and was a fairly simple replacement, I think it took about half an hour start to finish.