Hi, I've got a weird powered tailgate issue on my Superb.

If I press the interior button I can hear the lock release, but nothing happens after. If I press the button on the outside of the boot, the lock releases but nothing happens.

If I press that button a few more times, I will eventually start rising but only to about half way. If I press the outside button again, it'll drop back down again but I have to press down on the boot to get it to do the final catch.

The button on the inside of the boot lid does nothing apart from occasionally dropping the boot down when it fancies it.

I've tried manually pushing the bootlid to it's maximum opening and then holding the interior bootlid button for 3 secs. I get the funny beep but no change in behaviour.

I took it to the garage, they said it was the pulldown motor. Got that changed, no difference in behaviour.

Anyone had this before? Am I in for a new pair of struts?

Addendum: I've also got the virtual pedal thing, that works fine, when I can get it to trigger. Even when things were working OK, it only seemed to work when I was rummaging in the boot and it would close on me

Have you scanned it for fault codes? It could be a faulty control module

The garage I took it to said the error code was what you get when there's an obstruction stopping the full operation, but there is no obstruction

did this get resolved only I have a similar issue and have had for quite a while intermittently initially but now fairly constant.

I've done extensive research (not exhaustive). I found:

On activation, either by key fob, in the car or at the boot, the module fires a signal to the lock to unlock. I'm guessing that if the lock moves from the locked state to unlock state that tells the module to activate the strut motors in the open (lift) direction after the lock releases. 2 hall effect sensors IN EACH STRUT are used to feed data back to the module with regards to:

the speed of each strut,

the position of each strut

the relative position of the struts between them (so the hatch isn't twisting on its hinges)

In addition to this, I suspect that the strut motor currents are monitored which may indicate an obstruction if they exceed a preset threshold.

I'm not aware/sure if there may be other transducers involved but I do know if there are open circuits in the wiring to the motors or hall effect sensors, this will show up in a test code reader (but not just a bog standard OBDii reader, it has to be VAG specific)

A common issue is that one or more of the thin hall effect wires can break at the 100 degree bend in the rubber boot after it repeatedly gets bent and straightened in that area. If the break is such that the insulation remains intact you don't see it and it can be a momentary break and make issue which stops the module knowing essential data with regards to the strut speed, direction and position and so stops both motors for safety protocols. It maybe thinking that there is an obstruction. The intermittent break will not always log a fault code and so you don't find it that way. The best way to do this is using the full code reading tester which gives you access to the particular data stream of the module.

I don't have one, mine only logs constant codes for that module (motor and hall sensor 1 is nearside, 2 is off side)

After much anguish, I made an executive decision that the cost of a garage hooking up to their computer would be similar to the price of a pair of struts and so, because most faults point to faulty struts/wiring, I bought 2, changed them and ... no change?!!

Now I'm left with a decision to buy a dongle for full Professional access or strip out the boot, locate the module and see if there is anything obvious at that end.

Thanks

Edited 7 July7 Jul by Davet30

I did get it sorted. I had the pulldown motor changed, to no effect, then had another garage look at it and they gave it a good ging over, concluding thst it was in fact the struts. These were changed out and everything's been fine since. One thing of note, the distributor sent the wrong struts in the first instance, then the correct ones, could you have had some confusion from your supplier?

Wiring looked the same. Length was too. There was a difference side by side - the glued sheath length differed by approx 20mm. I can't see where any part numbers are located??

I'll see if I can dig out the invoice for mine, you may be able to compare with yours...