Protege5 trunk light does not turn off after closing trunk door

[SoonP5ismine]

Hi. I searched to no luck for Protege5 trunk light switch (not the one right in the light assembly itself). Thought maybe someone ran into this problem before. I just got my car back from the body shop where they replaced my back door and did some other body work after I got rear ended. So I take the car home and open the trunk and It seems to pop out under pressure unlike it did before so I begin adjusting the rubber stoppers and the 2 bolts on the loop on the bottom part of the trunk that holds the door in a locked position and I get it to close how it was before the accident. But now I have a problem. For some reason when I close the trunk the trunk light doesn't shut off. This would not be a big deal as I can just leave it off but My alarm also no longer automatically arms because of that. Something is telling the alarm that the light is not off. So I am trying to figure out what the hell happened during me adjusting how the door closes that the made the light switch not shut the light off when I close the back door. Any Ideas?

 

[whatusername]

simple answer take it back to the body shop and let them deal with it

 

[pcb]

There is a door switch inside the tailgate on the backside of the latch under the plastic panel.

Most likely when you loosened the latch loop on the bottom of the tailgate, it no longer reaches far enough into the tailgate latch to activate the switch.

There may be some adjustment on that switch itself. You could try to readjust the loop and the stoppers so that the loop pushes a little further into the latch.

Try to get the loop latch tight with the rubber stoppers loose to reduce the pop.

 

[hornsfan10609]

You said the magic word: Body shop. I agree with whatusername, make the shop fix it as they should have in the first place. The hatch switch is not engaging as you stated which is keeping the alarm from arming and i'm sure all the lights and door open light stay on as well.

 

[pcb]

If you had a new hatch put on it probably came with a new door seal. That seal wouldn't have the 10 years of compression on it like your old one would have. It may just need some time to seat itself.

As far as taking a back goes,... everything worked fine until you adjusted it, so ....

You could try pushing on the hatch a bit when you open it to take some pressure off the latch.

 

[pcb]

I just went out and looked at my car. If you were to adjust the latch on the hatch instead of the loop, it would bring the latch closer to the loop without tightening the seal.

There's three bolts that hold the latch on but I don't know if there's any adjustment if they're loosened.

 

[hornsfan10609]

He doesn't have to tell the shop he has adjusted anything. They should not have let the car leave the shop that way

 

[P-Funk!]

Until then... turn the light off at the switch in the hatch.

 

[SoonP5ismine]

Sorry for not replying earlier. I went to the shop and they wanted me to stop by next week as they were busy this week but next week Monday I'm driving to Mississauga, Ontario so I will have to come back to them when I come back after New Year's unless I some how figure this out while I'm in Canada. Thanks for all the suggestions. Ill post back here with related info.