Quote:
Originally Posted by trology
My latch on my 2006 aveo5 quit working and since the dealer wanted $100 just to look at it, I decided to tear into it and see if I could save some bucks.
I had to let down the back seat and down where the inside latch is, there is a trip button to release the latch which I did.
After opening I push in the plastic panel interior pins and pulled them out of the interior panel and unscrewed 2 panel screws by the handle pocket and removed the panel (5min)  .
The handle on the outside is supposed to be connected to the rod which when pulled, moves the rod down which pulls ever so lightly across to the the release latch. The rod had popped out out of the handle retaining hole. You could operate the latch easily by pulling the rod that runs across to the the hatch latch so I knew that part was OK.
The rod would not stay in the handle and I am sure this bad design will show up with other Aveo owners. 
 The fix is to put the rod back into the connector and plug into the handle hole. then zip tie the connector to the handle arm and since the zip might try and slide off go ahead coat the entire connection lightly with shoe-goo or silicone and put the door back together (5min) and this should last as mine has lasted fine ever since.
You can razor cut the zip tie and silicone if you ever need to remove the handle.
Thanks
Tim |
Thanks so much for this post. I registered for this forum just to be able to express my gratitude. Man I love the Internet! I knew the dealer would probably want $100 just to look at this issue on my 2004 Aveo and figured a fix had to be simple. So off to Google I went and landed here. Thanks to your tips I had the hatch door inside cover removed, latch problem fixed, and cover back on in roughly 10 minutes tops! A couple of those minutes were spent trying to find where I stashed my zip ties. LOL
I don't believe they used such a shoddy design for this latch. That little green piece of plastic at the end of the rod that goes into the handle's retaining hole was destined to fail. At first I tried just popping the green plastic part on the rod end back into the retaining hole, but it was brittle and part of it broke. I was still going to zip tie it after anyway, but I thought I'd mention that the green plastic part isn't really necessary using the zip tie method.
I would say however that I think the silicone part of your fix might be a bit over the top. All you need to do is make sure to loop the zip tie around the end of the metal rod at least once once in just the right way before then wrapping around the black handle as well. Make sure to use a fairly heavy duty zip tie, but it can't be too big as the space can be slightly slim. I was lucky to have a package of assorted sizes.
So, if you have this problem like we did just know that for a couple of bucks spent on plastic zip ties, a Philips head screw driver, something to cut the end off once done, and no more than 10 minutes time you have your fix. Don't even think about taking this to the dealer to be ripped off for something so simple!