Lower Tailgate Latch broke off- What do?
 

All- Recently acquired a beauty of a '10 35d for a steal of $4300. One of it's major issues is that the lower tailgate latch (and control rod) are totally broken off. It's closed, and I can certainly use the trunk while it stays up, but it would be nice to be able to regain the utility of it opening. Has this happened to anyone else, or does anyone have an experience with this?

Will take some examining of the realOEM diagrams and a look at the BMW tis to work out how you can use a rod or something to manually unlatch the bottom tailgate.

realOEM lower tail gate diagram

On an aside, that's a smoking deal on a 10 35d. Nice work. Hope it's nicely optioned too.

What bmw tis? Sorry, not familiar with “tis.” I’ve studied that diagram earlier today, and the shaft seems to need to rotate. Unfortunately, I believe the previous owner may have accidentally epoxied it into place, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to force it to rotate to release. I’ll be digging into it this weekend hopefully.

Thanks! It’s black sapphire metallic (same as my 335i) on saddle brown Nevada leather has the premium package, tech package, rear climate package, cold weather package, with roof rails and iPod connectivity. I wish I had the drivers assistance package, and the sport package, and leveling suspension, but I can’t have it all! Still a crazy deal on the truck.

Epoxied it in place? Sounds like a real peach of a previous owner.

Here is the link to Tis: https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/

It can be a little tedious to find exactly which repair procedure/diagram/etc has the info your looking for on it, but it is definitely helpful.

To be fair, he really knows his way around the mechanics of a vehicle. Just, the finnicky things he seems to try to fix fast, and this time it might've porked me. Also have the left rear running lights out, but the brake lights all still work. Maybe a short trigger in the frm...