Rear hatch latch
 

I have an early 03 X5 that my rear hatch recently stop latching. It was intermittent at first, and then it just quit altogether. After reading here I figured my latch mechanism was shot so I picked up a new unit from the dealer.. it is doing the same thing as the old latch. When I press the rear hatch button on the remote, I can hear the mechanism activate, so I know it is getting power, however, when I press the rubber switch above the license plate, the mechanism no longer activates.

The actual latch part does not appear to be under any spring tension the way other latches are. Is there supposed to be spring tension in this design? Other than a bad unit from the dealer, any other ideas as to where to look?

easy remove and replace ,the part is about $ 100 , about 6 screws pull it back and aliens screws. re-pull.done.

I already replaced the part with the same results.

Yes there should be spring tension, pushing inward on the latch tongue you should feel spring resistance and then it should lock into place.

Pressing the hatch button or the keyfob trunk release button should release the latch.

There is a lot of helpful info on the system floating around here, including diagrams, I recall it involves at least 1 module, and a relay or two in the trunk.

From what I remember there are a few fuses to check in the glovebox and rear, and a relay at the rear as well that you can check by swapping with a neighboring relay.

Mine turned out to be the latch and I was able to repair it, others have had to change out latches, and I recall some had to replace the relay.

It's been a while so I cant really remember, but the info is still here and a search will give you a lot of places to start.

Yes there should be spring tension, pushing inward on the latch tongue you should feel spring resistance and then it should lock into place.

Pressing the hatch button or the keyfob trunk release button should release the latch.

There is a lot of helpful info on the system floating around here, including diagrams, I recall it involves at least 1 module, and a relay or two in the trunk.

From what I remember there are a few fuses to check in the glovebox and rear, and a relay at the rear as well that you can check by swapping with a neighboring relay.

Mine turned out to be the latch and I was able to repair it, others have had to change out latches, and I recall some had to replace the relay.

It's been a while so I cant really remember, but the info is still here and a search will give you a lot of places to start.

Thanks, that is what I was looking for. I read all of the threads I could find on this, and that is why I bought the new latch. I just needed to know if it was supposed to be under tension before I took it back to the dealer as a bad part.

Great, hopefully that solves the problem, good luck!

Just a quick followup. I took apart the new latch I purchased from the dealer. For some reason or another, the spring was not attached to the anchor on one end. After reattaching the spring, the latch functions perfectly.

Ah BMW QC...well, at least it's fixed now. Thanks for the update.