Hi People,
I'm not sure how many of the readers on this forum have an All Terrain Warrior with the electronics door/steps but if you do you need to read on.
Our truck was one of the first delivered with these electronic doors which fold outwards and become the steps (2010). This door although "tricky" is actually a PITA simply for the reason that the side opening door requires too much room to open when parked next to other vehicles/obstacles and is too slow to open/close when it's raining. also when it's raining the steps collect a large amount of water which runs back into the truck when you close the door. In hindsight were we to order our truck again we would opt for a side opening door simply for reasons of practicality.
However for the past couple of years the door/steps have been operating slower and slower and more erratically and recently have been refusing to open or close at all. I had assumed that this was due to either failing electronics and/or the motor/screw. As replacing either of these items would have probably >$1000 and the truck is now out of warranty we opted to replace the electronic opening door/steps with a simple side opening door and a ladder.
However, and this is the bit you should read: it turns out that the erratic operation and/or failure of the door to open/close was actually due to the hinge being rusted very badly to the point where it had effectively frozen.
Above as you can see in the above image showing one side of the door pivot is very badly corroded. Even though this pivot is in the wheel arch (and therefore is very exposed to any mud/dirt/water etc) this truck has never been on a beach or in salt water so this corrosion is purely due to exposure to normal road conditions.
As you can see in this image which shows both ends of the door pivot (the pivot was so badly corroded that we had to cut the axle in half to remove it) there is significant corrosion in the hinge area.
For those of you who have this electronic door set up I would strongly suggest you remove the door hinge if possible (note you need to undo the grub screw so that the hub can move inwards and allow the hinge to fallout) and drill a grease nipple hole through both hubs and fit a grease nipple to both sides and regularly grease this hinge.
We have now completely removed the electronic door and fitted a side opening door so this is not an issue for us any more.
I'm not sure how many of the readers on this forum have an All Terrain Warrior with the electronics door/steps but if you do you need to read on.
Our truck was one of the first delivered with these electronic doors which fold outwards and become the steps (2010). This door although "tricky" is actually a PITA simply for the reason that the side opening door requires too much room to open when parked next to other vehicles/obstacles and is too slow to open/close when it's raining. also when it's raining the steps collect a large amount of water which runs back into the truck when you close the door. In hindsight were we to order our truck again we would opt for a side opening door simply for reasons of practicality.
However for the past couple of years the door/steps have been operating slower and slower and more erratically and recently have been refusing to open or close at all. I had assumed that this was due to either failing electronics and/or the motor/screw. As replacing either of these items would have probably >$1000 and the truck is now out of warranty we opted to replace the electronic opening door/steps with a simple side opening door and a ladder.
However, and this is the bit you should read: it turns out that the erratic operation and/or failure of the door to open/close was actually due to the hinge being rusted very badly to the point where it had effectively frozen.
Above as you can see in the above image showing one side of the door pivot is very badly corroded. Even though this pivot is in the wheel arch (and therefore is very exposed to any mud/dirt/water etc) this truck has never been on a beach or in salt water so this corrosion is purely due to exposure to normal road conditions.
As you can see in this image which shows both ends of the door pivot (the pivot was so badly corroded that we had to cut the axle in half to remove it) there is significant corrosion in the hinge area.
For those of you who have this electronic door set up I would strongly suggest you remove the door hinge if possible (note you need to undo the grub screw so that the hub can move inwards and allow the hinge to fallout) and drill a grease nipple hole through both hubs and fit a grease nipple to both sides and regularly grease this hinge.
We have now completely removed the electronic door and fitted a side opening door so this is not an issue for us any more.