Technical Boot won't open by hand or remote

[Farrah]

Thought better add my boot light , number plate lights and door open / close light on dash all work fine. Also I hear a click in glove box when I press the boot release button in the car.. is it supposed to click. Or is that a sign the fuse there is blown. I cant get at them tbf rivet metal in way

Hi, it was a while ago when we did this and only ever done our own so not really knowledgeable....the purple and black wire were definitely what worked the actuator the other wires were I suspect the boot open warning unless there are some metal proximity ones embedded somewhere we assumed that is all they could be.....is your door open light showing on the speedo cluster as off when boot closed and on when boot open.....if you disconnect the purple wire and put your meter on it other wire to a good earth each time you press the fob you should get a 12v signal to the wire so this should eliminate the fault as to which side of the circuitry.....when we got no 12v here we just worked then along the wires towards the front......not a great fan of continuity tests unless both end of wires are disconnected from circuits..and be mindful that these wires break up inside and can look perfect on the outside and even worse you can have your tailgate open and the wire inside makes a circuit but the moment you shut the tailgate the strain on the convoluted rubber as it bends the bunch of wires can then open circuit the wire.......we taped sewing needles to the ends of a piece of wire and push these through the insulation just to test if wires are broken inside especially where getting to each end to actually put a test meter on can be major strip outs.......add the info on the boot light warning and what is happening on purple wire as you press the boot release......the clicking relay/flasher I would consider normal as when you press the fob even for boot release the indicators flash as an acknowledgement/warning...........

 

[Craigfiat]

Hi, it was a while ago when we did this and only ever done our own so not really knowledgeable....the purple and black wire were definitely what worked the actuator the other wires were I suspect the boot open warning unless there are some metal proximity ones embedded somewhere we assumed that is all they could be.....is your door open light showing on the speedo cluster as off when boot closed and on when boot open.....if you disconnect the purple wire and put your meter on it other wire to a good earth each time you press the fob you should get a 12v signal to the wire so this should eliminate the fault as to which side of the circuitry.....when we got no 12v here we just worked then along the wires towards the front......not a great fan of continuity tests unless both end of wires are disconnected from circuits..and be mindful that these wires break up inside and can look perfect on the outside and even worse you can have your tailgate open and the wire inside makes a circuit but the moment you shut the tailgate the strain on the convoluted rubber as it bends the bunch of wires can then open circuit the wire.......we taped sewing needles to the ends of a piece of wire and push these through the insulation just to test if wires are broken inside especially where getting to each end to actually put a test meter on can be major strip outs.......add the info on the boot light warning and what is happening on purple wire as you press the boot release......the clicking relay/flasher I would consider normal as when you press the fob even for boot release the indicators flash as an acknowledgement/warning...........

Thanks alot for spending time replying. Its been really helpful and with your help, I understand the actuator workings. I'm going to have a proper dive into it. I'm not getting any volts on the black and white cables or in your case black and purple, when pressing key fob. I thought it might be down to a fuse somewhere ? But i get warning light on dash if boot open and boot light works, so unsure if it was fuse related??? I only have 2 boxes , one under bonnet and 1 under glove box. I have arthritis etc and can get access to glove box fuses. There's a thick metal rivet plate in way. So I'm going to take your genius advice and use needles to poke into the white wire. If I trace it to as close to source as possible and it shows 12v when pressing key fob the its defo a break in cable. If it doesn't I need to follow it to the source ( probably electronic box / fuse box ?? ) and test it there. If 12v isn't coming from that. I think I'm going to give up and continue to use my x3 tied together laces pulley system I attached to the manual latch release hopefully not a mot failure.
I've been meaning to px my car for years but it only costs me £190 a year for the insurance and tax in total. I'm a tight git, I squeek when I walk £££ ha ha

 

[Farrah]

Thanks alot for spending time replying. Its been really helpful and with your help, I understand the actuator workings. I'm going to have a proper dive into it. I'm not getting any volts on the black and white cables or in your case black and purple, when pressing key fob. I thought it might be down to a fuse somewhere ? But i get warning light on dash if boot open and boot light works, so unsure if it was fuse related??? I only have 2 boxes , one under bonnet and 1 under glove box. I have arthritis etc and can get access to glove box fuses. There's a thick metal rivet plate in way. So I'm going to take your genius advice and use needles to poke into the white wire. If I trace it to as close to source as possible and it shows 12v when pressing key fob the its defo a break in cable. If it doesn't I need to follow it to the source ( probably electronic box / fuse box ?? ) and test it there. If 12v isn't coming from that. I think I'm going to give up and continue to use my x3 tied together laces pulley system I attached to the manual latch release hopefully not a mot failure.
I've been meaning to px my car for years but it only costs me £190 a year for the insurance and tax in total. I'm a tight git, I squeek when I walk £££ ha ha

Well if that is a picture of you on your avitar then it must be old.....!!!
Purple is the wire you should be looking for a voltage supply in the back of the tailgate when you press the release latch or fob...I would not necessarily always expect to see metered voltage show up on these other wires as sometimes they are just pulse signals to electronic modules so would not show up on basic home test meters........so check see if you get voltage on the purple wire when you press the fob......it does not matter if boot is open or boot is closed or if the latch is held pushed to open condition which is why I suspect the other wires and any operation will only create momentary pulse signals.....

 

[Craigfiat]

Well if that is a picture of you on your avitar then it must be old.....!!!
Purple is the wire you should be looking for a voltage supply in the back of the tailgate when you press the release latch or fob...I would not necessarily always expect to see metered voltage show up on these other wires as sometimes they are just pulse signals to electronic modules so would not show up on basic home test meters........so check see if you get voltage on the purple wire when you press the fob......it does not matter if boot is open or boot is closed or if the latch is held pushed to open condition which is why I suspect the other wires and any operation will only create momentary pulse signals.....

The purple wire isn't getting any volts so I'm going to trace that wire along to see if at any point there's a 12 v . The picture is recent about 6 month ago. I used to be about 17 stone fat before lock down. But during that I reduced my food to 1 big meal a day. Lost 6 stone and didn't do any exercise what so ever , I'm 40 too lazy to exercise I swear its 90% diet 5% exercise 5% genetics. My fingers don't bend much , I got lupus and raynauds as well so anything too fiddly I cant do. I usually just bodge it or leave it.

 

[Craigfiat]

Well if that is a picture of you on your avitar then it must be old.....!!!
Purple is the wire you should be looking for a voltage supply in the back of the tailgate when you press the release latch or fob...I would not necessarily always expect to see metered voltage show up on these other wires as sometimes they are just pulse signals to electronic modules so would not show up on basic home test meters........so check see if you get voltage on the purple wire when you press the fob......it does not matter if boot is open or boot is closed or if the latch is held pushed to open condition which is why I suspect the other wires and any operation will only create momentary pulse signals.....

YESSSSS Fixed it.... I traced the white power cable all the way to glove box no power. So I took another look at fuses. Managed to get glove box door off by removing plastic plug thing. I tested the continuity of each fuse by using sewing needles taped to multimeter prongs there was a 5amp brown fuse with no continuity. Removed it replaced with a 10a and boot latch worked. It says its supposed to be 15amp fuse in diagram online. So somebody has put wrong fuse in. All was good but I forgot I manually locked latch then I shut boot and latch broke arm off luckily I bought the used one off ebay for £6.50 . Fitted it jobs a good un thanks for advice .
Anyone else has boot light and the latch shows open warning light on dash . They don't work off boot fuse . So just because they are working, doesn't mean , power to open latch is ....

 

[Craigfiat]

Anyone else has boot light and the latch shows open warning light on dash etc . They don't work off boot latch open fuse . So just because they are working, doesn't mean , power to open latch is .... so you would still need to replace fuse

 

[Farrah]

Anyone else has boot light and the latch shows open warning light on dash etc . They don't work off boot latch open fuse . So just because they are working, doesn't mean , power to open latch is .... so you would still need to replace fuse

Happy you are sorted.......a little encouragement to have a go with help off the forum can save owners a lot of money..........

 

[Craigfiat]

Happy you are sorted.......a little encouragement to have a go with help off the forum can save owners a lot of money..........

Defo gave me more understanding on the latch. What confused hell out of me was the boot light and the warning open on dash . Both worked fine so I assumed the fuse was good and looked else where. But the needles attached to multimeter continuity I found the blown fuse. Happy days thanks