Rear liftgate intermittently opens and closes with key fob

[RenoTahoeDenali]

Hello. Just recently, my 2017 Yukon Denali 6.2l's rear hatch stopped opening and closing with the key fob. It will occasionally work at point blank range with the fob, but no luck further away. It was literally working fine last week. I replaced both batteries in each fob, and I also replaced the rear tailgate lift actuator. Around 2 months ago I also replaced the lift shocks (one electrical, one mechanical). All was working perfectly until last week. And yes, the interior knob is set at FULL. The interior knob works 100% of the time as does the rear hatch button on the bottom of the liftgate.

When I press the rear hatch button on either fob twice, the exterior lights blink and that's it. The rear window pops open when I push the left button, and the exterior doors unlock and lock accordingly. The remote start also works fine as do the panic buttons. I eyeballed the rear fuse box and removed the tailgate fuses and all look pristine. On a whim, I also reprogrammed the key fobs and nothing is fixing this. The weird thing is it will work occasionally, only to not work when I immediately try to re-open and close with the fobs.

I also thought it might be a loose ground at wherever the car receives the fob signal, but I don't know where to look for that. The only thing is everything else the fobs control works 100% of the time. I've read dozens of threads here and it seems the likely fix was the actuator replacement... thus I replaced it. All connections felt solid inside the rear panel of the liftgate when I popped it off. Any help or advise is greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this. This forum has helped me with numerous things in the past.

Cheers!

 

[homesick]

My '07 Escalade had wonky rear hatch action, erratic response to the fob, opening or closing.

I park in the driveway, and went out in the morning a few times, to find the hatch all the way open- inviting one and all.

My solution was to buy 2 fobs [eBay] without the hatch buttons. I now just push the button in the rear hatch handle to open or close the hatch.

I haven't had any weirdness since I started doing it this way. Not being able to open the hatch 3 seconds before I can touch it hasn't been too serious a burden.

FWIW

joe