I have used many different door lock actuators in my profession, and this is tops! Although for the most part, a door lock actuator is a door lock actuator - I have found the 524N to be the most reliable. I have not seen one of these burn out or get stripped gears. It also happens to be the most compact, making it much esier to install. Any time I can use the 524N instead of the 524T, I will. Great job, Directed Electronics!

My 2002 Ford Escape has a rear-hatch solenoid that costs $110.00 at the dealer.This unit with one hole drilled fits perfectly & works better.Easy mounting with all the stuff provided.This is the unit you want for any linear motion device that needs replacing.
Good product at a fair price.

This is a pretty descent actuator. I purchased it because, as many people will testify, when your actuator fails on your Escape, Ford has decided that you need to replace the entire mechanism in the liftgate at a cost of around $190. For most situations, this is a complete waste of about $160 since the mechanical parts just need to be lubricated when you replace the actuator.

Now if you are not a person with tools (drill press and dremel tool) or are just not handy, then this is not the replacement part you want to use. If you mess up installing this item, you could have your rear hatch open unexpectedly with lethal consequences. In addition, you should also check if there is a recall on your vehicle for the liftgate as some models have had a recall for this part failing during a collision.

So you are forewarned.

To mount this part I had to remove the door handle assembly. This isn't a lot of work, but is a little tedious. I removed the old actuator and slid the connecting arm (a small plastic piece attached to the actuator) off both the old and new actuator. The plastic heads are slotted so they only go on and off the actuators a specific way. If you have to use too much force, you are probably trying to remove it the wrong way.

The first modification I had to make to use this actuator is on the mounting point of the actuator. I had to use a dremel tool to cut a slot 90 degrees to the existing slot, so the old plastic connecting arm would slide on the correct way. Once I test fit the old connecting arm I placed the actuator on the door lock plate to figure out where I would need to drill the holes to mount the actuator. This takes a little bit of fiddling around. You have to make sure that the movement of the actuator is basically the same as the old one. For me, I had to drill 2 holes, one just below the old hole closest to the actuator head and another hole to attach the mounting bracket, almost across from the new hole. Its hard to describe here, but I selected a spot that would have the least chance of interfering with anything while providing a bit of a triangular form of bracing. These drilled holes were done on a drill press and are the second modification I had to do.

The third modification was to the supplied mounting bracket, the long metal part that comes with the actuator. I had a lot of extra bracket hanging off the door lock assembly that I cut off using the dremel tool. Dont forget to file/smooth the edge where you cut off the extra bracket. Over time, if a wire or something rubs against it, the sharp edge will cause damage. This was the fourth modification I had to make.

For the wiring, I didn't want to cut into the wiring harness on the car so what I did instead was I disassembled the old actuator and used the plug from it. This is not as simple as it sounds. The plug is actually part of an injection molded plastic assembly that connects to the motor in the actuator. I had to carefully remove it, grind away the plastic until there was a place to solder on the new wires and bend them in such a way as there new way they could ever short. If you go this route, you will see what I mean. Again, I used the dremel tool to carefully remove the plastic. After that, I soldered the included wire connectors (cut down to length), heat shrunk some protective tubing, electrical taped and made sure there would never be a chance that this part could short or become a fire hazard. Remember, your car will encounter a lot of jarring/movement over its lifetime and you do not want this to connection to fail.

Since I was not sure which direction was the correct way to wire the actuator, I did not fully connect the wiring when reinstalling. What I did was loosely push the wires from the actuator into the corresponding barrel connectors I attached to the old actuator plug. If you push these all the way in they will lock in place and are a pain to get out. Once you have them loosely connected, I tested the locks. The first time I tested it, I had the wiring backwards. I reversed the wires and tested again several times. It worked as expected. Now firmly push the wire connectors together and tape all the wires so they don't rub against metal or move around.

With the liftgate cover reinstalled, I found this actuator to be slightly louder than the old one.

SIDE NOTE: This is a common failure on the Escapes so I wanted to see why it failed. The actuator is a German made part by Kiekert part PA6 GF30... and good luck trying to find that part.. many have tried... and failed.

Once disassembled, I found that the electrical motor inside still worked just fine... however the gears connected to the motor had basically froze. The lubricant was so gummed up that the motor couldn't turn anymore. Shame on Ford and Kiekert for not doing a better job here. This part is failing on enough of the cars that it is clearly a design/manufacturing issue and should be addressed. At the very least, there should a lower cost replacement part that doesn't require repurchasing the entire liftgate locking mechanism for the failure caused by poorly chosen grease in the actuator.

This door lock has worked fine and was a bit slimmer and easier to install in my Impala than the first one I purchased. I purchased this after reading a review that said he uses these in various installations without issues. The first one I purchased was a bit bulkier and slightly cheaper and lasted about a year. This one, on the first time I operated it, ....... I could tell it was a much stronger actuator. Good force. Very pleased!

I read several forums on installing tailgate locks on toyota tundra's and one of the posts recommended this accuator. I bought one and installed it that night, took about 1 hour and works awesome,,,that has been 4-6 months ago and the thing still is working great. Cheapest tailgate lock ever,,, less than 15$ I wired mine to work off the keyless entry. Also a mounting piece of metal was included, so i had to buy nothing else,,, worked awesome!

I installed this on the lock in my driver's door in my '96 Subaru Legacy, and it works great! I I started my Sunday hooking it up with a BullDog Keyless Entry system, and I had it all working by the end of the day!

I added power locks and keyless entry to my Chevy Spark and used these actuators. I initially purchased different actuators that cost much less (4 for about 14 bucks). The cheaper ones seemed to work fine, but I accidentally wired a relay incorrectly and fried one of them when bench testing everything. I ordered one of these to replace it and upon unboxing it was obviously a much nicer actuator. It was way smaller and thinner, and came with all of the needed wire and a rubber wire loom for running the wires between the door and frame. The rubber wire looms along cost 8 or 9 buck here on Amazon. I liked them enough that I ended up buying 3 more and scrapped using the original ones I bought. All 4 are installed and work great!

Strong actuator...You really here the lock click shut! The universal fitment was a pain though on my 97 Ford Explorer 4 door. Overall Works much better then the Dorman which died with 3 weeks but the Dorman was a direct fit.