Land Rover Discovery 3 – Top tailgate latch repair.

If you cant open your tailgate, hopefully this will help!

Overview

The rear tailgate of your discovery 3 or discovery 4 has two mechanisms that form part of the total system.

• The side actuators – these lock the lower part of the tailgate
• The center actuator – this actuates the latch that holds the top and bottom halves together.

The part that seems far more prone to failure is the actuator that locks and unlocks the top and bottom gates together.

How do I unlock it?

Unlocking the tailgate is not fun but totally doable. Here is how to do it

• Get into the back of he vehicle
• Pry along the top of the inside of the tailgate. This will give access to the back of the actuator, be patient, take your time. There are videos on you tube for the exact steps.
• You need access to the actuator. This around the center of the tailgate. Once it is located, you can push the plastic cover away to give access to the cable underneath.
• If the motor is tired, and the swagged end is still in tact, you can pull the cable with your finger. You will know when the tailgate releases. This doesn’t normally take much force.
• If the swagged piece has broken you will need to get some vice grips onto the end of the cable. I found some small vice grips work best.
• Pull the cable. You should now be able to open the rear hatch!

Why does it fail?

As shown in the picture, the swagged end of this cable SHOULD have a right angle in it. This right angle slips into the plastic section and is held into place by the plastic tabs shown.

Once this swagged piece snaps – the end of the cable is no longer located properly and is then allowed to slide rather than transfer that force into the cable.

What is the fix?

The fix comes in many forms. The common options are:

• Order a fresh cable – because I wanted an inexpensive fix, I didn’t investigate this option. Besides, it seems that the fresh cable is still prone to breakage (admittedly it should last along time before giving issues)
• Find another way to stop the cable from slipping – this was the option I went with. This can be really effective. Read on to find out how I went about this!

I purchased some 2mm wire, and some wire clamps. I wound the wire through the hole in the plastic receiving piece, and then clamped those wire ends to the existing wire as shown below:

This allows the movement in the mechanism to be transferred into the cable rather than slipping.

In my case, I found that my motor was also tired. It would activate strong initially, then slow over time as described in this forum post:

https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/discovery-3-tailgate.345005/

Hopefully this post helps you to get your tailgate operational again! 🚙