When i unlock (using the keyless), i can hear a solenoid working, but not sure if its for the hatch or the fuel door. My 03S seems to be missing the pull cord for the rear hatch. Any other way of opening it?

 

The button under the license plate light is not working on the hatch?

 

The 'pull cord' should be under the rear seat cushion near the center.

Hope this helps...

 

There is no solenoid for the fuel cap, unless something was different on '03s. Can you describe your problem a bit more?

 

The pull cord is gone from under the rear seat, the bracket which holds it is still there, but no cord, traced its path to the side paneling, but nothing. There is a pin which, when locked, slides into a bracket in the fuel door to prevent it from opening while car is locked. The handle by the plate lights is not working.

 

Hmm - that does sound like a problem. Why would someone have removed the access handle? I assume that you bought the car used?

I didn't know that about the gas cap. Pretty nice solution, actually.

It is common for the wiring in the rear handle to get wet and short out where it won't trigger the latch or the latch will trigger randomly and/or when you turn off the driving lights. The solution in that case is to remove the handle and put it somewhere with moderate heat for a couple hours to thoroughly dry it out. You can remove the handle from the rear without the hatch open, but you may not be able to unplug it from the outside if the lead is too short. If not, you could still try to dry everything in there very good using a heat gun.

 

I'm not sure when the pull handle went into the US cars but they did not have it originally, my 02S didn't have one (or a jack), and when they did start putting them in there was no retro fit to those that didn't get it.

if just drying out doesn't change things:

Haynes mentions two items that can be the culprit: there is the button's micro switch, behind the lic' plate assembly that can be replaced (cut the wires and solder in new) or the actual lock assembly which requires access from the inside of the boot lid . . . since yours won't work from any location, that suggests 2 me is it the lock and not just the button.

 

On my 02 MCS there's no pull cord to manually open the rear hatch. Fortunately I have installed an aftermarket car security system (Viper) which I programmed to open the hatch with the AUX button. That saved me when one day my hatch didn't want to open.

Then after a few weeks the damn hatch started working again all by itself.

Cheers,
RayanMX