chrism » I purchased a 2003 V70 about a year ago. One of the price bargaining chips was the “Tailgate Unlatched” warning that was erroneously illuminated on the DIM. In addition, the cargo area dome light didn’t turn on when the hatch was opened. (I had read that when there was a problem with the latch sensor that people would remove the dome light bulb as it would continue to burn after the hatch was closed.)
Shortly after purchasing the car, I removed the inner tailgate panel and latch assembly hoping to find an issue with the latch sensor micro switch – no luck – the switch functioned as designed. Also I couldn’t see anything wrong with the wiring all the way from the latch to where the harness disappeared into the LH hinge cavity. I feared the problem must be further up stream so I ignored it until I would “have more time”.
Well, as time went on the problems mounted – Locking the doors would blow a fuse in the aft fuse panel, not only disabling the rear door and hatch locks, but also the fuel cap door (Not real convenient when you have to get out of the car and replace a fuse at the gas station just to fill up!) Then the center brake light quit working. Now it was becoming a safety issue.
So this past weekend I tore into the inner trim panels so that I could chase the harness down inside of the “D” pillar. I found a disconnect inside the speaker grill. Unplugging that and snipping a tie wrap that was hidden up behind the trim panel allowed me pull the entire harness out through the hatch hinge cavity. The harness is housed in a flexible fabric conduit, which interestingly didn’t show ANY signs of damage. But when squeezing the conduit up and down its length, I could feel something that didn’t feel right with the wires inside. Pulling the conduit down, sort of like skinning a snake, exposed the severly damaged wires. The damage was occuuring about three inches inside the body, apparently being piched between the hinge arm and something else.
V70 TAILGATE WIRING HARNESS DAMAGE
abscate » I think the failure point on these cars is where the zip tie holds the loom to the car inside the D pillar. All of the motion of the loom is concentrated at that point so that it bends on a short radius these…recipe for fatigue failure. Not only do the wires break, they all break, start shorting together and then you get the rear wipers coming on with lights and other demons
To get those three yellow wires right
1 get a wiring diagram for your model year of car ( one above isn’t right)
2 disconnect negative terminal on battery
3 with ohmmeter, test each yellow wire down stream ( below break) for continuity with is component downstream and label
4 reconnect battery negative.
5 with voltmeter, look for 12vdc on each yellow wire when the component identified on the diagram is powered up and label.
6 I would solder in a loop on each wire to relieve bending moment…about a 1 cm loop will do.
7 electrical tape colour matched to car or heat shrink tube for that pro look.
V70 Tailgate Wire Harness Repair
Last Updated on July 21, 2024
