My dad has owned his 2004 Honda Accord Tourer from new. The tailgate mechanism appears to have failed and no longer opens and closes automatically. You can manually open and close it, but it is very heavy to initially lift and does not stay fully open. When closing, you can push it down normally until it is about 12 inches from closed, then it makes a horrible "bang" and drops closed. It seems to me that a joint in the mechanism has failed, and it looks like the roof lining will have to come down to get to it.