NHTSA Complaint #11562627 — 2015 LEXUS RX

One early morning in November, I opened the rear door on my RX to remove my rollator walker. I am handicapped. I opened the door using the switch under the door handle. The door opened normally, and I reached in to remove the rollator and the door jerked down about a foot then continued to close with several jerking drops. It scared me, but I was able to jump out of the way of the door as it dropped. The temperature that morning was in the lower 40’s which was perhaps the lowest early morning temperature we had seen this fall. I feel that the low temperature may have contributed to the problem. I opened the door again with the switch. The door opened fully but closed again in a similar manner as described above. I was able to hold the door up with one hand and removed my rollator with the other, which was rather difficult due to my limited strength. Later in the day, after the temperature rose, the door opened and stayed open as it should. I discussed the problem with my local Lexus dealer, and they felt that the problem was most likely due to worn shocks which are used to hold the door open. I am familiar with this problem. I owned a 2002 Lexus RX and had a similar rear door shock problem after about 175,000 miles on the car. The rear door on that car was manually operated. If the door didn’t stay up on a manually operated door it was more of a poor-quality issue than a safety issue since it was readily apparent if the door was not going to stay open. The situation with an electrically operated door is quite different. The person opening the door completely relies on the door to stay up when it is opened. In addition, the door could be operated by a child who may not be able to react to the falling door. I had the shocks on the door replaced by the dealer at a cost to me of slightly more than $400. I discussed the safety issue with the dealer and followed up with a reply on a satisfaction survey they had sent. In the repair writeup the dealer