i always thought it was the body shop that messed mine up, after getting it back from the shop i was real mad cause it would stick. good to know

I live in NY. Mine worked fine until it got below about 60 degrees this fall/winter. Then my rear hatch had to be pressed twice to get it to open. Now that it is warm again, it works fine once more. One press and it opens right up. For my car at least, 60F seems to be the magic temperature for the hatch springs to start working.

I've been talking about this for two winters now. My seasonally sticky hitch is a function of temperature. Mine works fine until maybe 40 degrees then I have to press twice. No big deal. I'm sure the temperature is the reason for the phenomenon here in PA.

Stock spring and boot with penny trick worked down to 25F. No issue. I'm sure it would work at even lower temps.

My new springs were working fine until I put the cover back in place - that seems to pull it down and require extra force to lift.

Working with new spring and penny for now, but it is over 70F.

yeah I need to get this fixed

Update:

since ive replaced mine with the longer ones, i have had no double attempts at opening the hatch.

these longer ones are holding up just fine in the texas heat :tiphat:

I have not noticed a problem with ours. Thanks for the heads up.

Mine needs done......

Replaced but problem returned
 

I had mine replaced in Jan. and the problem has come back even at around 50 degrees F. I will do the penny thing again but this is just plain stupid. Interestingly, I took a buddy of mine on a trip and put his suitcase in the back; he noticed the problem was disappointed. He has the Z in his sights as an option but indicated that if they could not get this right, there must be other issues with the car. I told him that ALL cars have small issues and that overall the car is amazing. Guess I will see what impact it has on his final decision since he is buying in the next couple of weeks.....

Noticed in your profile pic that you don't have the Sport Pkg or no wing on the hatch...wonder if that could be the problem :confused:. I have the wing and had mine replaced with the "long" springs about 18 months ago...doing great. Made it all winter with no problems (never has been a problem in warm weather).

Agreed. The fix is to have the longer unit replace the stock short ones. There is a TSB out for the proper replacements. I've had no problems since they installed the new longer ones.

They installed the new ones on mine and I'm still having issues sometimes.

Not to rehash this topic endlessly, but I thought the "proper" replacements are not longer. My dealer replaced the springs in my hatch per the TSB (or so they said), and the springs look to be the same length as the original ones from the factory. And now, about 6 months later, the hatch doesn't always open like it should.

Does anyone have the Nissan P/N for the longer ones?

the replacement springs should be longer than the original ones

As I mentioned earlier, I have had the springs replaced with new longer ones and now after about a year of no problems it has started to play up again with start of the colder weather.

If it's still under warranty then the fix is simple....

Funny - they've known about it since 2009, yet here it is having the issue in the 2011 model. wtg Nissan. Getting online now to get the appointment set up. Here's to finding things out before the warranty is up.

Why would you have a problem that doesn't exist on your car "fixed"?

The problem does exist on my car, but it's a 2011 model. I'd presume since it was an issue in 2009 TSB, that they'd correct their mistake in the models going forward that use the same parts.

I'd presume wrong.

Going to try to get an appointment Friday to get it resolved. Will post back how it goes.

After taking mine back for the second time I was told no fault found. In an effort to prevent this from happening again, they put grease all over the latch which ended up all over my hands. Looks like I will have to wait for Winter as it only seems to fail when its cold.

As I've stated before, I had this same problem on my 1985 300ZX back in the day. I also have a friend who owns a 350Z who also has the stuck hatchback problem.

Obviously this is an area of the car that Nissan has had problems with for a LONG time that they haven't taken the time to fix. It's just a lack of attention to detail.

Take it back a third time and invoke the lemon law, lol.

I video taped mine happening at the house, as it seemed every time I took it to the dealer the hatch worked fine (three times). On the fourth time I took it in and it worked fine, then I pulled out he camcorder and played back the video from in the morning at the house and shazzam...they ordered up the replacement part and it has not happened again in 2 years.

nice!:tup:

I Should have video'ed it. Of course it was 65 degrees today so they found no issue. Still took an 1 1/2 hours for them to do the oil change though, what's up with that. Hate to see what happens if I didn't have an appointment.

The video is good ammo. Take some video at the house on a cold day when its more apt to stick.

gah mine was repaird now is sticking once more

Took mine back and they put a penny in each of the springs that were replaced before. They also machined the rotors because they said they were warped.

same problem here. been to dealership twice for fix. the last one worked for about a year. but now i have to push it twice to get it to release.

making apointment next week because i'm coming up on 34,000
want to get it fixed before warranty runs out.

It's summer here now, so no problem for now. I know when winter is back, so will be the problem.

Just did the penny trick today after the hatch failed to open all day without pulling at the same time. I used 2 on each side and it's worked like a charm. Much less hassle than taking it into the dealership.

I'm awed at how the springs are listed at $32 each D:

I experienced this 3 times in a 2 week visit to Seattle, on my brother's driveway...perhaps the slope of the driveway (nosedown)??? Never happened in my home town. Interesting "penny fix". So, where did you insert the pennies? What's the theory behind this...penny acts like a spacer?

:iagree:

Does Nissan charge you to get the new springs?

Yea the Nissan guy put one penny in each one and it's a big difference.

They charge $38 for the springs, how much do they charge you for the two cents?

:wtf2:

They shouldn't charge you anything to change them out. This should be done under warranty and or the TSB on this problem.

Had mine changed out a while ago and it still sticks most of the time. I plan on taking it back in and asking the guy to drop in a couple pennies as well, lol.

:iagree: