[Raderguy]

Hi Everyone!

I'm looking at purchasing a 2006 Sienna XLE Limited. Normally, I prefer less bells and whistles, less electronics...less to go wrong, right? But, an ideal Sienna has popped up and it happens to be the fully loaded model. All the power doors and rear hatch seem to work fine. One sliding door is a bit slow/sluggish... but I have been doing a lot of reading about ALL the power sliding door woes, lawsuit, and repairs that can be involved when something does go ( inevitably?) wrong. The doors can get STUCK open, or closed, or mid way... and all the other nightmares. This has actually scared me from potentially making this purchase. Is there a way I can safely disable these power features, and use the doors, and trunk manually? Such as to avoid wearing down these motors, cables, and electronics through repeated use.

Those of you with experience.. is there any tips to keep a working system working and avoid these issues down the road? Or to disable the power features and just use the doors and lfit gate manually as I please without potentially wearing these things out to the point of failure in the future?

I plan on keeping the van for a long time and hopefully putting many loving miles on it and wish to avoid expensive headaches in the future. I'm very meticulous with my vehicles

Any help / advice much appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Roader]

When I bought my '04 Limited almost five years ago the cables on both sliding doors had been cut. I use them, and they work fine, manually. Note that both of the power latches still work fine. Repairing the latches is much less difficult (and less expensive) than repairing the cable/sliding mechanism.

The power rear hatch works fine. I did take it in for a recall and the dealer replaced the lift strut(s) with a newer design. It was free. Go here to see if it's been done:

Vehicle Identification Number (VIN)​

Every vehicle has a unique VIN. Enter a VIN to learn if a specific vehicle needs to be repaired as part of a recall.​

You can disable both the power sliding doors and the power rear hatch with switches on the dashboard to the left of the steering column. Try that with this potential new vehicle. The power sliding door switch has always been switched "OFF" on my van. I do disable the power rear hatch sometimes (when I need to drive with it open) with the switch on the dashboard, forget to turn it back on, and have found that it also works fine manually.

 

[Raderguy]

Thank you. that is the explanation I was hoping for! Do you know if the cables are not yet cut, and I switch the power doors off and use them on manual model, are the cables still getting used and spooling in and/out? Or does that only occur during power operation of the sliders?

 

[Roader]

I think the cable still spools when opened/closed manually. Check out this video. But, like I said, I don't know for sure since the cables were cut on my van before I bought it.

 

[BillG]

The main failure point of the door is the cable. In their infinite cost-cutting wisdom, they used a thin, stranded steel wire and then coated it with a plastic which gets super brittle after 5-10 years. Once the plastic cracks, the cable starts to rust and then eventually snaps. The issue isn't the actual breaking of the cable as much as the broken cable gets wrapped around the plastic drive gear and binds up. The alternative version is where the plastic drive gear strips on the shaft first. Pre-cutting the cables is probably overkill. I would just toss a pair of wire cutters or tin snips into the van and drive it with the full features it has. If it jams, cut the cable (open the rear vent window, remove the plastic trim over the back pulley and cut the cable) and turn the switch off. Or, just turn the switch off and use it full manual, because the gear presents no risk of a tangle causing a jam if the motor isn't turning.

As for the power lift hatch, I don't have this feature on my LE. However, with other vehicles, it isn't the power part of the door that fails. It's the hydraulic lift-assist cylinders which fail and then, instead of a smooth, light effort by the motor, it has to lift that super-heavy door unassisted. That, of course, burns the motor out and/or blows a fuse. Preemptively replacing them is cheap and easy insurance to assure proper operation of the lift feature.

 

[thanwu]

I have been diligently maintaining my 06 XLE power sliding doors before the passenger side sliding door failed a couple of years ago. Luckily it did not get stuck. I cut the cable on passenger side and use them manually since then. I would also suggest to disable the power sliding doors, but keep the power liftgate feature. I did change the power liftgate struts a couple of times with cheap third party parts from Amazon.com.