[Bksmith]

I've been dealing with the "power sliding doors are unavailable" for a few weeks now. Often I can open one of the doors, but then cannot close it with the outside button, A pillar button, or overhead button as I get the unavailable message. I did notice that when I start the car, it is not as strong a start as it had been in the past and leads me to believe that there is some sort of battery/power issue causing this.

To add to this, my dash glitched out, went dark then back up, and then the car promptly died while I was driving. Fortunately I was in a residential area and could take the time to pull over. I got the "Service ESS" message just before it died. I was able to restart it and get it home, but when I tried to start it in the morning, I got no response from the vehicle on the first attempt. The second time it did start and I was presented with "Service Shifter" followed by "Service Emergency Brake". I let the car sit a few hours and decided to take it to the dealer. Of course it was operating correctly when I dropped it off.

It has been at the dealer for 7 days now and they think they have pinpointed the issue to the battery not having the proper voltage. They are replacing that and then mentioned that they will be doing software updates to see if that will correct any other issue. I am out of warranty by 3,000 miles so I am being charged a $160 diagnostic fee that will be applied to service credit, the battery at $170, the software updates and labor...for a rough estimate of $600 for this fix. I'll know the particulars tomorrow when they call to give me an update on the vehicle.

I would love to know how this turned out, I believe my is battery also as the power slide door and rear lift gate do not work.
If I open the slide door remotely then it wont remotely close it and also my car wont start.
If I just get in the car it will start and slide gate works from. Button inside, so i think it's a battery issue, i have 33k miles on in.

 

[Bksmith]

I believe my is battery issue as the power slide door and rear lift gate do not work remotely.

If I can first open the slide door remotely then it wont remotely close it and also my car wont start.

If Idont open the slide door and just get in the car it will start and slide gate works from Button inside, so i think it's a battery issue, i have 33k miles on in.

 

[Bksmith]

also if I get in my car and am able to start it, I can open doors with my key fob.
I am going out of town this weekend so will buy a new battery just incase, sure hope I dont get stuck somewhere and ruin our trip.

 

[SciTchr]

I believe my is battery issue as the power slide door and rear lift gate do not work remotely.

If I can first open the slide door remotely then it wont remotely close it and also my car wont start.

If Idont open the slide door and just get in the car it will start and slide gate works from Button inside, so i think it's a battery issue, i have 33k miles on in.

In your case the battery is a good place to start. It should be covered under the 36 mo/36,000 mile warranty.
If you put your van info in the signature line it will show up at the bottom of each post.

 

[Patty G]

I have the 2018 Pacifica Hybrid and have been having this problem (sliding door power unavailable) intermittently forever. I've taken it in to the dealership at least 3 times specifically for this problem (and reported it at every other visit) and they never find anything. They say they reprogram and reset. It's ok for a while and then happens again.

I think it maybe linked to temperature. This last summer, I don't think it happened once, but now that its cooling again, it's happening in the mornings during school drop off. (Which is not a good thing when you have a lineup of impatient parents behind you.) It doesn't happen in the afternoon at pickup. I've checked around the doors. No items blocking the tracks.

Typical scenario, early morning, kid hits button on outside of passenger slide door. It works fine. Hit button inside door to close. Works fine. Drive to school. Kid hits button inside. Door failure message. Kid hauls on the handle to open manually. Sometimes the button will close it, sometimes not. I pull away and find a place to park. I hit the button. Now it works fine. Sigh.

Last week, I had it into the dealership specifically for this issue. They had it for two days and found nothing. Reset and reprogrammed.... it will be good they said.... happened again this morning.

This is obviously a flaw in the design somewhere. This thread is almost 2 years old. When are they going to figure this out??

 

[SciTchr]

I have the 2018 Pacifica Hybrid and have been having this problem (sliding door power unavailable) intermittently forever. I've taken it in to the dealership at least 3 times specifically for this problem (and reported it at every other visit) and they never find anything. They say they reprogram and reset. It's ok for a while and then happens again.

I think it maybe linked to temperature. This last summer, I don't think it happened once, but now that its cooling again, it's happening in the mornings during school drop off. (Which is not a good thing when you have a lineup of impatient parents behind you.) It doesn't happen in the afternoon at pickup. I've checked around the doors. No items blocking the tracks.

Typical scenario, early morning, kid hits button on outside of passenger slide door. It works fine. Hit button inside door to close. Works fine. Drive to school. Kid hits button inside. Door failure message. Kid hauls on the handle to open manually. Sometimes the button will close it, sometimes not. I pull away and find a place to park. I hit the button. Now it works fine. Sigh.

Last week, I had it into the dealership specifically for this issue. They had it for two days and found nothing. Reset and reprogrammed.... it will be good they said.... happened again this morning.

This is obviously a flaw in the design somewhere. This thread is almost 2 years old. When are they going to figure this out??

If the inside door button is pressed before the van is in park, you may get the power door unavailable message. So even though that may not be the solution to your problem, it might be worth checking.

 

[Minion0904]

mjr0483,

I had this exact problem today and figured it out. The online manual states if there is something obstructing it, it shuts off. To reset it, here's what I did. There is a small black box under the track where wires run into both sides. On top you will find a red switch. Switch it in the other direction, leave for a few seconds, then switch it back. Then pull the door all the way back until it clicks and locks. Make sure it doesn't slide forward at all. Then pull the handle out and slide the door to the closed position. When closing, you should feel some resistance. When fully closed, try the button then. Hopefully this will fix it. If not, could be another deeper issue. Hope this helps!

The switch tip worked for me. Thanks!

 

[Patty G]

If the inside door button is pressed before the van is in park, you may get the power door unavailable message. So even though that may not be the solution to your problem, it might be worth checking.

Nope. They wait for me to be in park and unlock the doors.

 

[Patty G]

The switch tip worked for me. Thanks!

There are no obstructions. If you read back in this thread, this doesn't do anything. It's just a relay connection.
Once the kids pull the door manually, it 'resets' and doesn't happen again for a few days. It's an intermittent fault. It never stays in failure mode.

 

[mrmagicmph]

I just had this occur and I think I know what might have caused it for me. My 2018 PacHy Limited has, as all of this model & trim level do, the key dongle. When I got the message, I'm 95% certain that the dongle had gotten "trapped" between the seatbelt & my leg in such a way that it probably activated the button to open the sliding door. I'm not saying at all that this is definitely what happened to anyone else, nor can I say 100% it is what the cause was with mine, but, it does line up perfectly.

Good luck, whatever the cause(s) are or may be!

 

[Texas vanman]

mjr0483,

I had this exact problem today and figured it out. The online manual states if there is something obstructing it, it shuts off. To reset it, here's what I did. There is a small black box under the track where wires run into both sides. On top you will find a red switch. Switch it in the other direction, leave for a few seconds, then switch it back. Then pull the door all the way back until it clicks and locks. Make sure it doesn't slide forward at all. Then pull the handle out and slide the door to the closed position. When closing, you should feel some resistance. When fully closed, try the button then. Hopefully this will fix it. If not, could be another deeper issue. Hope this helps!

Thanks for the suggestion, it worked for me! I had to repeat the process three times but it got working on its own after the third reset. Saved me a trip to the dealership!

 

[SirDano]

Fix



This is most likely a connector wiring harness problem and is easily fixed by you like I fixed mine. It happened to me last week on the passenger side. The door first failed to close and may have had an obstacle in the way near the closed position. Then for the next few days, would simply beep and give the "Sliding Door Power Unavailable" message each time I tried to operate it. Key Fob, door outside button, pillar inside button, overhead console button, and door handle operation, all would do the same thing. I went to this forum, read this thread and suspected the connector. However, at the time I had no certainty of what caused it. I am experienced and familiar with this type of connector failure. It is caused by a combination of poor contact pressure, pin contact surface corrosion or contamination, and thermal cycling and relaxation of the contact pressure. It is aggravated by temperature extremes, age, poor pin material selection or connector design, humidity, and electrical heating. As the connection degrades, the contact heating increases and the problem snowballs. It happens most to power pin connections. This car obviously has current sensing for the door motor that reverses the door when an obstacle gets in the way and loads the door motor (high current limit exceeded for a certain length of time). Current sensing (too low as well as too high) is also used all over the car to detect component failures. One such failure occurs when there is a problem with the door power delivery, hence the message and disabling of the door electrical operation. This is to protect the components as well as alert you to a problem.
This type of failure is hard to diagnose because it is sometimes intermittent. But sometimes when it occurs, it does not go away and is easier to find like in my case.
Troubleshooting is difficult because disconnecting or even disturbing the connector can appear to fix it. Some may feel that this somehow reset things or it just remains unexplained (until it happens again).
A little explanation:
The connector that I suspect caused my problem is the one mentioned by others that is clipped to the plastic plate in the bottom of the door track. As has been pointed out, the red slide on the top of that connector is just a lock. it is not electrical. Operating it may have disturbed the connector enough to get it to work again. However, in my case, no amount of wiggling of wires, disturbance of the connected connector, or flipping this lock made any difference. So here is what I did that fixed it:
1. Grab the plastic plate that the connector is clipped to and pull straight up on it. This releases the plate from the two body studs so that you can pull it, the connector and its wires just out of the track area so you can manipulate it easily.
2. Slide the red lock forward (toward the front of the car).
3. Guide the forward wire bundle out of the retaining tabs of the plate so you will be able to pull the forward connector half free from the other half that is clipped to the plate.
4. Depress the connector lock while pulling the connector apart.
5. Apply bulb (dielectric) grease to the pins to keep them corrosion free and making good contact.
6. Push the connector back together all the way and then apart several times to help clear the contact surfaces.
7. Put it back together the way you took it apart, insuring the plate is clipped onto the studs as before and the wiring is in the restraint and neat in the bottom of the track.
8. Operate the door manually, then try it with a button.

I have a question for anyone else who is having this problem with one of the sliding doors. Before performing a fix, while the problem is active, can you try operating that sliding door's window? Of course, with the driver door window disable function NOT disabled. Since I do not have a wiring diagram, nor do I know where the current trip occurs, it might be instructive to FCA to know if this power disable occurs for all of that door's function or just for the door transit motor.

This worked! Thank you so much for the tip...very easy and probably saved me $115...any idea as to how to get the sensor on the tailgate to beep again?

 

[SciTchr]

This worked! Thank you so much for the tip...very easy and probably saved me $115...any idea as to how to get the sensor on the tailgate to beep again?

If it isn't turned off in the touchscreen (Uapps settings doors and locks), you may need to have the chime replaced. Others had it replaced under the factory warranty.

 

[Phever2018]

Much like Patty G above I have been having the "sliding door power unavailable problem" intermittently on my 2018 Pacifica Hybrid since at least March. It has been very frustrating. The van is in park and there are no obstructions when it is happening. My solution has been to press the button designated to operate the door manually, close the door manually, and press the button to return to the power door. This seems to reset it and the door operates, only to then reoccur randomly. The frequency of reoccurrence seems to be increasing. When possible I have taken photos to document the problem. The van has also been having another electrical problem which is that the touch screen will freeze/become inoperable and sometimes it will turn entirely blue. After turning off the engine and starting the van up again the touch screen seems to reset and it starts working properly again. At 1,000 miles this vehicle had had a wiring problem and the body wiring harness was replaced.

 

[Akbriggs2010]

This just happened tonight, but only on the drivers side sliding door. The passenger is fine.
Any method to open or close the door is met with chimes and a error in the dash, Power unavailable, operate manually.

is this a failure or did I turn this option off somehow?

So this happened on my passenger side door of my 2017 Pacifica with 38,000 miles. My wife just told me about it tonight and said it’s been broken for the last week. The fix for me was to disconnect the battery (Black/negative) cable and let it sit for about 10 seconds then hook it back up. This did a reset and my door is working normal again.

 

[tyc]

I have the same intermittent "Sliding Door Power unavailable" message, and have reported to dealer 3 times already. The problem has existed since I got the car and always on the driver side door. To everyone who has this intermittent problem, I totally understand your frustration. Dealer has tried reprogramming, draining HV battery, driving it around, etc. to no avail. It used to happen occassionally every few weeks, but now its happening almost every other day, soemtimes, multiple times a day. Every time it happens, if I manually open and close the sliding door, it starts to work again, only to fail again couple of days later. Has anyone had any luck with dealership fixing the intermittent issue?

Tony.

 

[pamsri]

I am seeing this same exact issue as well "Sliding Door Power Unavailable Operate Manually". I have never owned any vehicle outside of Honda before. Dealing with the dealer has been painful. Looks like the dealers don't have enough certified technicians to service the Hybrids. It took me 2 months to get an appointment and when i reached the service center they told me to come back as it will take a long time. I am about 8k miles away before i run out of warranty. I didn't muck around with fixes to avoid voiding the warranty. The service rep says could charge me 450 bucks. Additionally i see few more issues like "Service Charging System" Error and now a permanent check engine light on.

Its a great mini van and well designed and we have enjoyed the ride so far but i cannot deal with issues this early (1 1/2 year into owning a brand new vehicle). Seriously thinking of cutting my losses and switching to Honda Odyssey. Customer service for Chrysler is fine but they have no way of influencing the franchise dealerships to provide good service.

 

[yomanwill]

I have the same message intermittent as well. I waited for the driver side sliding door to error out and brought it to the dealer and gave them specific instructions not to open the door manually, until they hook up a scan tool to it. Weird thing is, when they scanned the module it was reporting back OK with no inhibits/errors and the DIC still had the message. I was really hoping that the door module would have been reporting something wrong, so that idea was a bust.

The dealer did some searching on their internal database, no TSB's or tips and tricks out there. So they they are flying solo, and their current hypothesis is that the door module is not waking up in time, then the DIC is kicking out an error message. They are replacing the door module tomorrow.

Update: They put in the new door module and programmed it, the new module reported back an error with the latch. New latch is on order. I give the dealer credit they are really trying to run this one to ground. With the holiday it will be a couple of days.

Update3: Looks like the new door latch got things working well. Long term if there is an issue I will come back and report.

So in summary:

1st visit, door was not in error state. Dealer inspected the harness, cleaned connections, did continuity checks, lubed, and re-calibrated the door. The issue came back, bummer.

2nd visit, door was in error state. Door module was not communicating correctly, new module installed, new module reported error with latch, latch replaced, door fixed

Moral of the story, electrical issues are hard and it really helps the dealer if you can demonstrate the issue.

 

[OneTrueKing]

Has anyone had any update on this issue? My passenger side sliding door is now doing this which is frustrating as I am in a wheelchair. It's also the side I normally put my wheelchair in on.

 

[yomanwill]

Has anyone had any update on this issue?

See my post above, still fixed and going strong. Best bet, bring the van over to the dealer with the error active so they can read codes. Mine was a door module and latch, but without a proper diagnoses it's basically load up the parts cannon.