I've been having a lot of little problems lately! No sooner do I get it (04 XJ8) back from the shop and there's a new bug that's surfaced. (ugh)

For some reason...while driving it around, the trunk will unlatch all by itself. I'll get a red light on the dash and the message "Trunk open" in the message center. Then, I have to stop, push the lid down and it'll latch again (until the next time).

A relative of mine (who will remain nameless because he may have caused this problem :P) didn't understand that there's no need to slam down the trunk lid in order to close it. So he slammed it down and ever since then, the lid spontaneously unlatches by itself while I'm driving. I can't prove cause and effect, so I guess I'll still have to talk to him at family reunions.

So, my question is could my relative have damaged the trunk latch just by slamming it down? Or is there maybe another reason this happens?

 

I don't know if that action could have caused it to be having a problem, but here's what I'd check (and sorry in advance for not knowing the correct naming of the components):

With the truck lid open, close the latch in the mechanism (found on the lid, not the car) and make sure it's staying closed. Hit the trunk release and see if it opens. This will really only check to make sure that your latch is not just staying closed all the time (not closing around the latch pin that it's supposed to grab).

If that's working fine, than I'd guess there's something wrong with whatever is sending the signal to release the latch (think it's electrical and not mechanical that sends the signal).

Just something to check. Best of luck to ya.

 

I didn't think it would, personally, just because I figured that there'd be lots of people who wouldn't know and that you gotta expect that it would happen a few times in the life the car. The timing of it just seemed too coincidental.

Thanks eastorlando! I tried what you suggested and it seems to be working correctly. I'm starting to think it's an electrical problem, too. I guess I'll just have to bring it back to the dealer and hope they can find it.

I get the feeling this isn't a common problem.

 

probably needs a latch

 

WE had one the other day that the car would sit for an hour and the trunk would open on its own - as long as the car was unlocked. If you locked it when you got out, it would not open by itself. Turned out...the wiring was chafed under the hinge cover for the trunk lid.

 

Thank you, FJT!
I'm going to try that, too. I'll just keep in the garage unlocked for several hours and see what it does. Last night, I armed and locked it and the latch stayed closed all night.

So because of this forum (big thanks to all you guys who got me thinking about it), I got to thinking that maybe it's a faulty _key fob_ (because it has a trunk release button on it).

If the trunk doesn't unlatch itself while the car is UNlocked, I'll switch to my other master key and see if it still happens. In a way, I sure hope it's a faulty key fob. That's so much easier to fix than searching for a frayed wire. That sounded like a difficult debug, FTJ.

 

Update to this thread:

Brought it in to the shop and the dealer's tech could find nothing wrong with trunk latch or electrical and was unable to reproduce the spontaneous unlatching of the trunk lid.

As a preventative measure, they said they "updated the software".

I'm a bit skeptical that the problem has been solved, but there's not much I can do right now but drive it some more and see if it happens again. The problem was that it would happen spontaneously (sometimes after 2 minutes...sometimes after 20 minutes of driving). I have to admit that the day before I brought it in to them all the way up until I handed over the keys to the service manager, the trunk lid did not unlatch even once, so who knows?

I'll update again if anything new happens.

 

lol software update..

 

lol

I still am sticking with chaffed wiring harness. It has just been moved somehow for now.