First time poster here... Just want to thank everyone on this thread about the experiences and details on the power lift gate for Model S.
I ordered mine from COzero early Jan 2018. Federico told me there would be a slight delay in shipment. I received the latest soft close version about 2 weeks later. Not bad for shipping from Europe to Northern California.
After reading the forum, I realized I would need to get new tools for extending the wire etc., and the whole process seemed a little overwhelming especially with the panel removals everyone said would be difficult. I contacted a guy from the local Tesla Mobile Service team and he agreed to install it for me after work. While he worked, I stayed by his side to watch, and occasionally lent a hand (when fishing the wires through the right side and popping the large hatch panel back in).
All in all, it took him about four hours from un-boxing to finish. As everyone said, the instructions could be better. Most of the four hours was spent on planning, and we spent about 30 minutes of trial and error after he connected the wires but the button would not work. Turns out you had to first manually close the hatch and then open it for it to start working.
Some observations:
1. You do need to extend the wires on the left side. We cut the connector off the left strut, which made it much easier to thread the wires through the black tube. Once on the other side (near the headliner), we extended the wire.
2. For the right side, instead of following the instructions to thread the wires through the black grommet, we simply used the unused plug hole next to the grommet. I believe that hole was for the factory power lift gate. Just remove the black plug attached to the wires in the kit, cut a whole in the slightly larger black plug covering the hole in the car, and thread the wires through.
3. Cutting the yellow wire on the latch does enable your key to operate the power lift gate.
4. The large pieces of double sided tape intended to secure the control module and the soft close unit do not work. We zip tied the control module on the right side and used two screws to secure the soft close unit under the carpet near the right rear fender.
5. The button that comes with the kit does light up red, similar to the factory button. I may install the factory button later. For now, the kit button works fine.
6. As everyone said, setting the hatch opening height works the same way as factory.
It's been 2 weeks since installation, and everything works beautifully.
In the end, I'm glad I didn't install the kit myself. I would need to buy new tools and accessories, and it would take me maybe twice as long trouble shooting and googling for solutions. Even if you are handy, I would suggest setting aside at least 3 hours for the job.
If you are in the SF Bay Area and want to hire someone to install the kit for you, I will recommend the person who performed my installation. He gave me permission to pass out his contact info, but I'd rather not post it on the forums in case he gets into trouble at work. Please let me know if there's interest and I can send you his contact info in private.