Help VF wagon tailgate

[Skylarking]

That's right, I did crank a thread up regards this issue and the answer was that I should not be paranoid. ?

Well, I'm am a tad paranoid regard this issue because it will fail when i am in the back of fooksville .

Anyway, carry on regardless and just smash the rear window I suppose.

All good innit.

yep, it’s that bugger Murphy at it again... you’ll either be in fooksville or up Ship creek. But that’s what happens when locks are all electric with no mechanical keyed lock as a backup...

Don’t know when the last commodore wagon had a physical key but maybe you can pickup some parts from a wrecker and retrofit/build it the way it should have been built from factory

 

[Terry57]

Yer, I recon you are spot on with that mate but let me tell you where I'm at regards this tailgate thingo.
I spend a certain amount of the year living over seas and then return to Perth pick me car and van up and hit the road touring.

So my wagon has a lot of stuff going on in the back like an Engel fridge, Deep cycle battery set up and numerous other gear that i access everyday im travelling.
So as it stands today if I have the Tail gate mechanism fail and I need to grovel inside the back and shove a flat head screw driver in that little hole and hope it unlocks. ?

For starters I can't even get to the little hole because I've got a full on party goin down in the back of my ride so it would be very inconvenient just unloading all my crap before groveling in the back.
Then I would need to locate an Auto electrician to fix the fooker whilst at the same time living on the road.

Yer, it's a dogs breakfast for me if it spits the dummy because of my circumstances but to be fair if I was a city pleb driving my ride down to McDonald's to get a Big Mac i would not give a flying fook.
Just pop down the road and get it fixed.

Anyway, that's my issue and I live in hope it don't go down that way. Caravan parks have just opened up in NSW so in a few days I'm leaving Mount beauty to head North and get some sun on my frozen Arse.

All good. Cheers.

 

[Big Red VF-SII Go-kart]

Don’t know when the last commodore wagon had a physical key but maybe you can pickup some parts from a wrecker and retrofit/build it the way it should have been built from factory

VX, VY and VZ Commodore wagons and the later VE Commodore and Omega variants (International, 60th Anniversary, AFM, etc.) all had key access to the tailgate.

The mechanism is not able to be retrofitted from earlier models (prior to VF) because the central locking control and engineering is not consistent after the VZ (VE, variants up to the present VF). The VZ tailgate lock is rudimentary, and curiously set up such that if the car is locked, and a key is used to open the tailgate, the alarm will be triggered!

 

[Skylarking]

Yer, I recon you are spot on with that mate but let me tell you where I'm at regards this tailgate thingo.
I spend a certain amount of the year living over seas and then return to Perth pick me car and van up and hit the road touring.

So my wagon has a lot of stuff going on in the back like an Engel fridge, Deep cycle battery set up and numerous other gear that i access everyday im travelling.
So as it stands today if I have the Tail gate mechanism fail and I need to grovel inside the back and shove a flat head screw driver in that little hole and hope it unlocks. ?

For starters I can't even get to the little hole because I've got a full on party goin down in the back of my ride so it would be very inconvenient just unloading all my crap before groveling in the back.
Then I would need to locate an Auto electrician to fix the fooker whilst at the same time living on the road.

Yer, it's a dogs breakfast for me if it spits the dummy because of my circumstances but to be fair if I was a city pleb driving my ride down to McDonald's to get a Big Mac i would not give a flying fook.
Just pop down the road and get it fixed.

Anyway, that's my issue and I live in hope it don't go down that way. Caravan parks have just opened up in NSW so in a few days I'm leaving Mount beauty to head North and get some sun on my frozen Arse.

All good. Cheers.

Yep... don’t disagree.

Just keep in mind the tailgate lock will fail when you’re in the middle of nowhere AND you’ll find out when you have a flat tyre with the boot chockers with stuff, in tne middle of nowhere. After smashing the window cause you can’t get to it through the cargo barrier, you’ll have to take some contents out through said broken window. Then, maybe just maybe you can open the dumb tailgate so you can continue to take things out just to get to the spare tyre and jack. Oh, did I mention it was raining

Seriously stupid design not to have a mechanical tailgate lock and also stick the spare tyre under a hatch under the cargo floor rather than have the spare tyre drop down like in a Ute... Seriously flawed...

 

[Skylarking]

VX, VY and VZ Commodore wagons and the later VE Commodore and Omega variants (International, 60th Anniversary, AFM, etc.) all had key access to the tailgate.

The mechanism is not able to be retrofitted from earlier models (prior to VF) because the central locking control and engineering is not consistent after the VZ (VE, variants up to the present VF). The VZ tailgate lock is rudimentary, and curiously set up such that if the car is locked, and a key is used to open the tailgate, the alarm will be triggered!

Pity it’s not a bolt in replacement but modders install later modern engines from different architectures so in comparison to engine swaps, solving Holdens tailgate design flaw should be a pee in the hand

 

[426Cuda]

Meh. A lot of fuss and worse case scenario postulating gents. We've owned two sportwagons, combined they've travelled in excess of 180,000 and never had an issue with the tailgate. The same with the sedan boots. Fully electric, no key, and no issues. Two private, two business. Never had a problem with any of them to date.

 

[Terry57]

I absolutely agree with you mate but my life as a digital nomad covering some out of the way places makes my mind dream up some really weird stuff.

At the moment it's a tail gate failure but the week before it was a gearbox seizure and next week it will be something else.

Ya got a laugh eh.

Cheers mate. All good.

 

[426Cuda]

I absolutely agree with you mate but my life as a digital nomad covering some out of the way places makes my mind dream up some really weird stuff.

At the moment it's a tail gate failure but the week before it was a gearbox seizure and next week it will be something else.

Ya got a laugh eh.

Cheers mate. All good.

Haha. Yeah, I get you. I'm like that with my boat. One silly mistake, or overlooked issue on land could lead to disaster on the water.