2008 Aspen
We where driving along and realized we needed something out of the back. I pulled over to the side of the road. I put the Aspen in park, left it running, and pressed the button on the overhead console to open the rear gate. It opened fine. My wife ran out and grabbed something out of the back. When she got back in, I wasn't really paying any attention, I thought she had just closed it by hand. I put it in drive to go. She reminded me that the rear was still open. So I put it back in park, pressed the overhead button again. The rear hatch closed like it usually does. Then we drove on to our destination. When we got there, I parked, shut the Aspen off. I tried to then open the rear gate by hand on the outside, then with the key fob, and then with the overhead button. None of them would open it. It just beeps one time and does nothing else. When I hit the unlock button, it doesn't sound like the rear gate is unlocking at all. Any ideas? I tried driving around some more, and made sure it was in park before trying to open it.

Also, is there a way to open it from the inside by hand (like an emergency exit thing)?

Thanks.

 

same thing happend to my 08 dealer installed new latch problem solved.repair time was about one hour.

 

Well mine turned out to be a computer issue, not anything wrong with the latch or lock. They said there is a TSB on it. Basically, under certain conditions the computer thinks there is a problem when there is not (a false positive), and it locks it out. They reflash that parameter to prevent this programming error from happening again. That took care of it. All they charged me for was the diagnostic time.