Kicking around with old cars might often mean you get the big picture right, but there’s some small item that either stays broken, makes an irritating noise, or acts up just when you really didn’t need it to. Take my Toyota Corolla, for example: it’s largely pretty good as a daily driver, and the functioning 4WD on it means it’s really handy in the winter.
Over the few years that I’ve had it, I’ve had some welding done to it, made sure it has good tires and working brakes, and despite some parts availability issues, I’ve managed to source rear wheel bearings for it. Being 4WD and thus relatively rare means a lot of the stuff from the firewall back needs to be ordered from Japan after perusing endless parts schematics late at night. However, there’s one thing on it I’ve neglected to put right other than spray brake cleaner on it, and it’s the hood latch.
The hood latch that sometimes doesn’t latch. The hood latch whose cable leaves the pull flap in the dash just a little bit out. The hood latch that sometimes needs repeated slams to secure the hood. The poison to kill Kuzco. Kuzco’s poison.
For example, I drove for six hours last night and got to my destination around 11 PM. I parked the car in the underground garage, and as a last thing, I thought I’d check the dipstick. And the hood wouldn’t close. I must’ve slammed it shut dozens and dozens of times, from various heights, and it always popped open, time after time. I propped some garbage from the trunk against the pull flap in the dash to try to keep it in line so it would perhaps let it latch. I fiddled with the cable, and I fiddled with the latch in the slam panel until my hands were black, and I sprayed it with some WD40 adjacent product someone had left next to their bicycle (sorry!).
At half past 11, I thought there had been enough slamming the hood shut extremely loudly, locked the car, and left it as is. The good thing is that I specifically drove the car south to eventually get the entire exhaust system replaced and as I’m writing this, I’m sitting in the train back north and leaving the car in the garage, having notified my brother to not to drive it until he’s managed to secure the hood so it doesn’t fly open like on Timo Mäkinen’s rally Mini on the Ouninpohja special stage at the 1967 1000 Lakes Rally.
I also didn’t bother checking the oil on the road, which means I didn’t end up swearing at the latch at a random service station with half of my journey still to finish. The engine doesn’t really burn oil, which on a 275k km, 2000 Toyota 74-FE means I sometimes top it up between 10k km change intervals but don’t need to pour it down its throat all the time.
And yet, it’s the smallest, the slightest thing on the car. It’s a cable (part number 53630-12500) that pulls the latch open (latch assy part number 53510-12670) and releases the hood (hood part number 53301-12860), it’s a latch that keeps it shut as I’m barreling down the road (highway number E12). It’s again full of grime, but I’m unsure if it’s the spring on the latch that’s let go (part number 90467-09043) or if the cable’s stretched. Earlier, moving the flap (part number 53611-22010-B2 for charcoal dashboard) between both its positions has convinced the latch enough to close, but for reasons unknown to me last night at 11PM to 11.30, it kept bouncing the hood back open.
Googling the problem makes me think it’s a common annoyance with Corollas, and it’s actually the one issue a friend mentioned about his similar-age, E11 generation hatchback. As well as fixing whatever’s wrong with it, I wouldn’t mind getting the hood look a bit more secure, as I can see it flapping slightly at highway speeds. I’ve never had it slam in my face while driving, with any of my cars, so I guess I’ve been lucky. None of my other cars have had this specific issue this irritating, though.
Top graphic images: Antii Kautonen; Toyota; iOS
The touchscreen on my ’18 Outback is now de laminating for the second time. The first one didn’t last as long as the factory tires, the second one not much longer. The screen ghost touches, and essentially renders the entertainment system unusable.
The CUE on my ATS did that and I replaced it, and then the replacement on it did it too.
Luckily it was a really easy thing to fix, because I had a coworker with an XTS that needed the same fix and I was able to do it no problem.
Are you sure it’s not a Mazda?
I have a few older cars with power fuel doors. For whatever reason mainly changes in temperature the display will show fuel door open. I used to mess with them some but I’ve just given up. Some of them also have an issue when the one of the doors heats up the power locks don’t work. Of course window regulators and door checks I can’t be bothered to fix. Blend door and electronic climate control issues. First gen Highlanders are infamous for that where you have to match the exact part number for the hvac control and there are several different ones. I just clean them up and they seem to work well enough for a while.
The goddamn tire pressure sensor monitors Jaguar put in the car to follow the NHTSA rules on them, which were already inferior to the ones my Corvette had in 1994, constantly malfunctioning and then fixing themselves for what seems to be no reason whatsoever.
Luckily at least there doesn’t seem to be a limp mode when they act up.
All tpms are annoying. They do a lot of nothing, then fail. I have just learned to ignore the light at this point.
No, they do something, and not all of them fail. Some are tied to the ABS sensors so there’s no additional hardware. I’ll keep them, thanks.
It is pretty wild that GM was leading the pack for so long on actually displaying the pressure at each corner. Particularly at this time of year when it’s 60 one day and 28 the next. But also on my FRS the TPMS would alert me to leak way before the super stiff sidewall tires would look low, so better than nothing.
I had a rental Chevy Cruze and I cycled through its little trip computer screen display and was a little shocked to find that while 3 out of 4 tires were at 32 psi, the 4th was at 51. I didn’t know whether it was really at 51 or if the TPMS sensor on that wheel had gone nuts. I left it and reported it when I returned the car.
My ’17 Accord has the ABS-based version of TPMS and although all four tires should change circumference evenly with changes in temperature, the light does come on once in a while. I check the pressure manually and then take it to Discount Tire which adjusts the pressure accordingly or just reset it if they’re all close to the correct pressure.
“Rental” probably answers that question. It was probably low and the lot attendant just added some random amount of air.
Meanwhile when I worked doing oil changes I had a lady stop in and ask to check the time pressure because the light was on. She had added air to all the tires and it wouldn’t turn off. They were all at at least 70psi. In her minivan. Full of her children.
The only vehicle I’ve driven where the TPMS was complaining was a rental.
TPMS alerted me that the object I just ran over caused a massive air leak within seconds and allowed me time to safely pull over before it was completely flat.
This. TPMS has saved my ass multiple times over the years and I won’t drive without it. Cars with dead modules in the wheel get an external system from Amazon that screws on to the valve stem, which honestly eliminates a lot of the complaints people have with the integrated ones.
Been there. I had lost 2 tires by the time I could get to the side of the highway. Tire guy pulled a large handful of metal shrapnel out when they got pulled off the rims.
My Focus’ are constantly malfunctioning. It’s b/c they’re old and the batteries are dying, but what gets me is no, you can’t simply replace the batteries (they’re literally coin watch batteries) but rather you have replace the entire sensor b/c the batteries are glued in there. I’d love to be able to go to the tire place with just a little package of batteries.
Honestly I thought TPMS was shit, even wrote a comment about how mine was malfunctioning on my 25 Nissan Leaf S, saying that the pressure was like 10 PSI lower in one wheel, then when I hooked an air compressor to it to fill it up it filled up instantly.
Turns out I had a tiny staple or nail in the tire that sealed well enough that the tire would hold pressure, but when the tire would get hot it would expand and bleed air till 30 psi and hold there. I only found it because when I parked in my garage it was clearly visible.
Took it to a Les Schwab and even they weren’t sure there was a leak. I told them to look at the tread and they’d find the little staple or nail in it. Guy found it, patched it, and I was on my way.
Without TPMS I almost certainly wouldn’t have found that leak till the obstruction ejected itself and I got stuck with a flat and no spare.
Also since my tires use directional tread a full size spare with the same tire wouldn’t be that useful to me since I’d have a 50/50 shot of a flat being on the wrong side.
Auxiliary coolant pump under the intake on my Audi.
Spark plugs under intake resonator on my tacoma. Oil filter location on my tacoma.
I get packing everything under the hood is hard, and there are limits and costs, but things that have a replacement schedule shouldn’t be so hard to access that they are skipped.
My ’03 BMW E39 has a factory navigation system (with a cassette player hidden behind the screen!) that hadn’t worked as long as I’d owned the car. I’d traced the issue to a plug on the back of the nav computer that connects to the wheel speed sensors, which I guess helps the GPS follow the car as it moves or something. Anyway, I wanted to learn how to solder wires, and since this plug only has two wires, both of which had broken or been cut, I decided it was a good candidate.
I did the soldering, threw a 2005 map DVD into the computer, and voila! I had a working, 23-year-old navigation system with hilariously pixelated maps!
Then I got greedy. The last time BMW issued updated map DVDs for this nav system was 2015, so I decided that I wanted the latest and greatest and ordered a set of 2015 DVDs from an ebay seller. They arrived, with a CD-R to update the nav computer’s firmware. I figured the update would be a good idea, put the CD in the computer…and it killed it. Got an error message that the update had failed, then my screen went dark and hasn’t come back on since. I had to unplug and remove the computer from the car, because it wouldn’t eject the CD and kept trying to read it, even when the ignition was off. The radio (and tape player!) still works, but no screen to tell me what station I’m on, and I can’t set my clock.
Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, thanks to an old disc drive and a sketchy CD-R. $200 later and I should have a replacement nav computer that’s already been updated to the most recent firmware sometime within the next week.
That whole system is tragic junk. After years of a parasitic drain that would kill my ‘03 540it’s giant battery in a couple weeks, a new mechanic was finally able to trace the problem to the nav components in the back, which he found to be constantly waking up and running while it was parked. Now the car’s non-opped and its battery can go a whole month or so without needing me to bring the trickle charger out to it.
Good to know…I’ll keep an eye on it, and be ready to remove the DVD and/or pull the plug that had been broken when needed. I got the nav system working mostly for giggles, but having the screen working is pretty important if you’re anal like me and want to be able to set the date and time and see radio info.
I suppose I’d better not bring up the white horizontal streaks of death that blanked out my nav screen around the same time.
I share the dilemma. The aftermarket head units for these cars look cool and have all the mod cons but the ones I’ve seen don’t support the info part of the car’s infotainment system, which I also feel is important. There’s a lot of data in there.
The Accord I drove in high school had a sunroof and the drains would sometimes get clogged and water would get into the car above the headliner. But I would not realize this until inertia took over when I backed the car up as I was pulling out for school. Nothing like getting a cup of dirty, cold rainwater dumped on your head first thing in the morning.
A speaker failed recently, so now it buzzes. Speaking or music, both have this faint background buzz from that one speaker.
The bezel around my gauge cluster vibrates at certain speeds and makes a horrid squeaking noise against the plastic of the gauge face. There is currently a tiny single serving Dots candy box jammed in between them to prevent that squeaking.
It is those annoying little things that make old cars so frustrating. I have had so many things over the years that are just intermittent enough to not want to spend the time and money.
Current issue
on my 2012 Jeep Wrangler the fog lights go off while the right turn signal is on but not the left and then after I make the turn and the signal goes off the fog lights come back on. I just do not care enough to fix it or even diagnose it.
The brake lights, turn signals, and windshield wipers on my Hijet all suddenly stopped working and it turned out the reason was 2 wire clips had become brittle after 30 years.
When the clips failed, the whole bundle of wires fell into the exhaust and melted just enough to expose some bare wire which shorted out the circuits.
My Evo, has been a never ending pit of issues ranging from moderate to minor. The one that likely best fits the description of minor problem major annoyance would be the HVAC blend door sticking.
The blend door is actuated by a knob which is attached to a push/pull cable. When the blend door won’t move it will stop the knob from moving, if you turn it harder it kinks the cable. If the car is set to cool temp it is unable to turn on the heat except by reaching under the dash and moving the door manually, since turning from hot to cold is a pull on the cable it operates just fine.
I have already tried looking at the mechanism and cable, but it seems my issue is the door itself sticking. I can buy a new door, but installing it requires removing the entire dash and disassembling the HVAC to put a new door in. This is a level of effort I have yet to gather to fix this issue, and since it is winter I’ve just left it on hot and controlled temp by adjusting fan speed.
My best guess as to why this happens only frustrates me more. It seems these cars did not come with a cabin air filter from the factory, which means gunk can get in to the HVAC and jam it up. There is a slot for an air filter,but mine had a blank off plate bolted where one would go. I was able to buy and install one, but this does not fix my hard to move blend door.
On my old Cruze the electronic trunk release broke. More than once. The first one was a warranty replacement. The second time some Deoxit D5 got it resuscitated. After the third time I ended up living with it for a few years and using the fob. Then once the trunk needed more frequent access and the fob got hard to operate from age I soldered in the cheap replacement switch I’d ordered off of AliExpress. It worked fine until selling the car.
Not a wrenching misadventure, but a warranty one: I had a 2019 Kia Niro PHEV. The charging port started to click rapidly when locking or unlocking the car. It sounded like a bad solenoid. Not a huge issue. Still charged, still drove, still did everything it was supposed to, but I was worried it could portend failures.
Since it’s under warranty, I take it in to have them replace the bad solenoid (or whatever else is the culprit). First visit, they want me to leave it overnight for them to diagnose. No loaner, but I could make do. I get a ride back over there to pick it up and they tell me the parts will take a bit.
A couple weeks later, they call me to schedule the repair. Once again, no loaner, so I have to get a ride back over a couple days later. I get over there and they tell me that they didn’t get the right parts, so it’s going to be another wait. I tell them I’d like a loaner when I return. I walk out to my car and the charging port door is hanging open. I try to shut it and it turns out they completely disassembled the latch. The tech says to drive it and not worry about it.
When they get the next parts shipment, I tell them I would like a loaner. They say they’ll arrange it. I get there and they do not have a loaner. I’m annoyed, but I can make do.
They tell me they’ve fixed it a couple days later. I go to pick it up and find the charging port door jammed shut. The tech jimmies it open and shuts it, only to have it jam again. The manager tells me that his guys wouldn’t put a car out there they thought wasn’t fixed. I remind him that I’ve already shown up to this vehicle with the charging port door dangling, so that’s not true. He says it should be drivable, and I tell him that they need to just hang onto it until they actually have it fixed.
Because I’m there later than usual, the shuttle isn’t running. I tell them they can get me a loaner or pay cab fare, and remind them that this whole thing has been a mess. I also ask them if they’ll just buy the damn thing back.
To their credit, they end up bringing me a loaner Mazda the next day and they say I can have it over the weekend. Monday rolls around and my car isn’t fixed, so I have to go swap them the Mazda for an EV6. I come back in for my car a couple weeks later, after they’ve replaced the charging port door with one that is slightly different, but fits fine. I hand them the keys to the EV6, hop in my car, and I’m not even out of the lot when I get a sensor warning. Another week in the EV6 for them to fix an O2 sensor.
It’s too bad. I might have bought an EV6 if the Kia experience hadn’t been so shitty.
Ford’s 4.6 V8 (the modular) has a coolant outlet at the rear that sends hot coolant to the firewall. It has a slight protruding lip around the edge, so the constant pressure clamp has something to push against, hold the hose on under system pressure.
It’s made of plastic, so perhaps not surprising that that lip might become brittle over the years and break. What was surprising was that it’s not an actual part like on many engines…it’s MOLDED INTO THE INTAKE. Which meant an entirely new one b/c of a few mm of plastic. Argh.
My new one has that outlet in cast aluminum at least.
The only thing I can think of isn’t really a broken thing, it’s a software glitch that only applies to my model year and can be fixed with a software update, but I can’t be bothered.
If you start the Q7 with the drivers door open, you get a drivers door malfunction and a parking brake malfunction. Nothing really changes, you just get a warning on the dash for the rest of the drive and brake auto-hold won’t work. It fixes itself if you turn it off and on again. It’s just a minor annoyance whenever I get in the car on a hot day and start it with the door open because it immediately starts screaming and I’m just like “STFU you’re not broken, just dumb” and then I have to reboot it.
Someone tampered with the ignition lock (guessing junkie with a screwdriver) on the Figaro, so the “is the key in?” sensor went haywire. So it started beeping more annoyingly at times where I didn’t need it to. Had to open the steering column and cut a wire (and felt very defusing a bomb in an action movie like), as I’m not prone to forgetting the key in the car. And none of my other cars has key beeping.
The “Hey you still have your lights on” beeper still works. Which is nice.
FiST – HVAC blend doors going all clicky.
My Focus has the problem too. And wow for an objectively easy repair, it’s fiendishly difficult due to its location.
The last one I replaced did the same thing. It’s not a slow thumping click like a broken one, it’s a loud fast click for 5-6 seconds every time I start the car. The vents seem to work fine too. It’s like the door is stuck or misaligned so I’m just waiting for something to eventually break.
I kept chasing a CEL for a evap leak, tried to find the leak, smoke tested, nothing. Then one day, while laying and working under the car, I happened to be looking straight up, a tiny unplugged hose was staring at me. It must have slipped off from the gas tank when my mech was replacing my rear subframe bushings. Went away after I plugged it back on.
“Small Yet Hugely Annoying Thing”? Mice, #@!$%$%#@^#$ mice, they are small and beyond hugely annoying. Whether noisily running around the headliner of the Bolt in the middle of the night when I’m sleeping in it out in the middle of the desert, or pissing in the headliner (now gone) and heater core of the old Jeep and stinking up the vehicle, they are terrible.
They are so random too. If animals decide they want to be in your vehicle it can be a huge pain to dissuade them of that, and to find and fix all the damage.
My building’s parking structure has a serious rat infestation. The neighbor’s newer Minis keep getting chewed wires so he puts down bait and sprays a mint potion around his cars. I figured that since my ancient Benz and even older Toyota have sat unaffected next to his cars for a while, I was fine. Then one of the Mercedes’ blinkers started flashing too quickly. That car burns bulbs like it’s addicted to them, so I went to put in a new one…
…and six inches of wiring came out with it. The rats also got the washer fluid sensor wires, some labels, and who knows what else. Now my cars are minty fresh too, for whatever that’s worth.
I don’t think they’re inhabiting the cars but the smell is awful. I’m pretty chill but when I get a whiff of it, it triggers some sort of instinctive anger, and that was before they dined on my car. The odor makes doing work there an ordeal, and I don’t do that at night anymore because the idea of being confined under a car as rats skitter about is strongly offputting.
Littlest thing? My li’l Nissan pickup has silly plastic fender flares (the mandatory 4 pieces of flair) and the trim that runs between the flares and the body is twisting its way out like weeds poking through concrete. I can buy a roll of new trim for $20 but it doesn’t affect the mechanical operation of the truck so why should I go to the trouble? Well, besides that it irritates me every time I see the truck.
I mean, what’s $20 vs. merely a daily irritation for the next x years I have the truck?
Loved the Office Space reference! [heart emoji]
PC LOAD LETTER
I try to plan my life for the opportunity to call something a TPS report as often as possible 😀
Tire Pressure System.
Why should I buy a roll of new trim? IT’S the one that sucks!
There is an exhaust leak on my 14 Impala from a faulty weld from the 1st stage cat header to the flex pipe, and as a result you can smell exhaust inside the cabin when stopped at stoplights, very annoying. Otherwise a fine car for 155K miles. There was a TSB from GM on this but unfortunately I didn’t know about it until I was over 100K. I might try the extreme heat JB weld on it. Don’t worry, I have one of the cigarette lighter powered CO detectors.
I went to change the cabin air filter on my Focus during my spring cleaning and the screw for the cover is stripped. When the hell did I do that?!
Did you have the dealer replace it before? They tend to use power tools for everything, even screws in delicate plastic. I hate that, just use a hand screwdriver.
Maybe? I don’t remember to be honest. I usually try to handle those easier tasks.
IIRC at least on my 2013, the screw doesn’t seem that necessary, there are squeeze tabs that seem to do most of the work.
The hood latch is a good one…I thought I had the same problem with my Del Sol until I realized that it only seemed to be an issue when I wore my Doc Martins. Turns out, I have a habit of grazing the hood latch lever when I get out of the car which was exacerbated by my bulky footwear.
One problem that continues to vex me on that car is the seized windshield washer pump. The pump is integrated into the reservoir, which is tucked in front of the driver side front wheel. I’d either have to remove the bumper or the wheel/fender liner to access it. Since I only drive the car on clear days in the summer, I haven’t gotten around to fixing it…it’s been an issue for 4 years now.
On my BMW E39, the plastic ring around the headlight switch broke. It’s what holds the switch in place, so it has fallen behind the dash. To turn the headlights on or off, I have to reach in with needle nose pliers, grab the post of the switch, stick my finger in to hold it, and turn the shaft.
It’s a plastic part the diameter of a silver dollar, and they’re like $300 on eBay.
I’ve had the mission of 3D printing a replacement for the last couple years, but every time I try to sit down and try to learn FreeCAD, I get so frustrated that I want to fling my laptop out the window like an olympic discus.
Is this the little bezel that has the switch positions printed on it? One avenue you might try, if you haven’t already, is looking on ebay for the entire instrument cluster surround; most sellers don’t bother to remove the light switches. Of course, the plastic tabs at the bottom of the surround will be broken, but yours probably are, too, and it’ll stay in place fine without them. Here’s one that looks like it’s in decent shape for $90, and if I looked longer there are probably cheaper ones. It’s an easy part to remove/install.
In any event, if this happened to my E39, I’d be glad it has automatic lights, because that procedure to turn them on and off sounds like a pain.
Fortunately it’s usually leaking coolant from somewhere, so I don’t drive it a lot.
If your coolant is not liquid, it cannot leak!
-Air Cooled Gang
Do I get masochist points for having a BMW (fantastic plastic cooling system) AND a Corvair (fan belt boogie woogie)?
In all honesty, though, in over 20 years I’ve never had a fan belt issue. It seems to only really be a problem on early ‘Vairs, and likely a pretty overblown one at that. The BMW cooling system thing is real, though, and it even predates the plastic-intensive cars; my ’73 Bavaria needed upgrades to its cooling power, too.
We have a 2018 Kia Sedona SX that we bought used from CarMax in August of 2024. It was a low mileage, one-owner example out of Ohio.
Haven’t had any issues with the van aside from one: the power tailgate ceased functioning. Did you know that on Sedonas with a power tailgate, there is no way to just open the tailgate manually? As in, you can’t just leave the power function broken and use it like a normal tailgate. It’s all or nothing. While it was down and out, the only way to open the tailgate was to crawl into the back, undo a piece of plastic trim, and pop the emergency release mechanism with a screwdriver or an equivalent tool.
The Kia dealership we chose to take it to (since we had the CarMax warranty but the CarMax service center was 2 hours away) ended up being incompetent and couldn’t fix the issue even after having the van for a month and replacing $2,000.00 worth of parts.
We finally took it back home and dropped it with an independent mechanic nearby, who replaced the latch mechanism (which the dealership said they already replaced once – not sure if I believe them now) and got it working again.
But, a minivan without a working tailgate during the kids’ baseball seasons and vacation time is not useful. At all.
I had an ’07 XC70 Volvo wagon, and same on those, there’s no manual release or unlock for the liftgate. So dead battery means not getting into the hatch. Not that big a deal, until you realize the battery is back there under the load floor and to effectively jump it, you need to climb back there with a booster box.
There are jump ports under the hood, but when the battery was completely dead I never had any luck jumping from them, but it would fire right up when attaching directly to the battery.
That reminded me of the time my battery finally died on my V70…I was close enough to my job that I parked it in a gas station log, walked up and then came back a few hours later with AAA…except…I had swapped out the drivers side door for a replacement a year or so before and never swapped out the lock cylinder. So I had no way to access the car (with only ONE exterior lock that worked with the key!).
AAA had to first pop the door for me, then open the hood, put the jumper cable on the terminals under the hood so I could access the trunk, after which I swapped out the battery a friend had graciously loaned me.
Oh, the life of driving crappy cars…
Volvos are so nice, till they aren’t. Mine was only 5 years old when I got it, I miss that version of that car.
I was just looking yesterday at classified ads both here and in the EU…I very specifically want an ’01 T5 with a five speed in silver with the dark/charcoal interior. They’re out there…
Sounds pretty unicorn-ish. I saw a 940 wagon near my mom’s the other day, I so want one of those.
I’ve also been stalking marketplace for a beater XJ/ZJ, but all the local ones look like swiss cheese. I’ll have to learn to weld.
They’re not as uncommon as you think…a few months ago there was another user on this very site that informed me that they never sold those here, and I must have had a grey-market import…I was so irritated I spent a couple of hours digging up all the info I could…I let my Road Rage side get the better of me…
I have a good guy that comes out and spends a couple of hours welding whatever I want…he’s done great things on my Tundra. He welds as much as he can for whatever money I have at the moment, and then comes back when I have more. It’s in my own shop, so I have the luxury of letting it sit until the resources are available. It’s the only way I can afford to keep my shitboxes on the road.
That’s awesome! I have a buddy in upstate NY that has his own shop with a lift; I’m so jealous. His latest project was a front suspension and brake refresh on his wife’s car that turned into a complete front subframe replacement due to all the rot he found.
Yeah, I have to have my partner’s Yaris repaired on the passenger side rear rocker panel…of course its unobtanium.
Power tailgate + battery in the cargo area is the stupidest thing. My BMW E39 wagon is the same. But, like the Kia, there is a way to manually open the tailgate from inside the car, so it’s just a matter of crawling back there. I’d be very surprised if your Volvo doesn’t also have something hidden away somewhere, seeing as there was an available third row on those and having a manual release seems like a safety issue as well as a convenience one.
You may be right, but I looked and didn’t find anything. I even Googled it. I was surprised too, for the same reason as you. I was shocked when I first had the problem and realized there was no keyhole in the liftgate.
Before I traded it in, the battery was DEAD, and every time I started it I had to unlock the driver’s side door, then reach in to unlock the back door, then climb in and lean over the rear seat to get to the batt access panel.
I’ve been all over my P2, and I never found any release latch for the tailgate. I think they expected whoever was in the third row to clamber over the rear seats to get out.
Ok good, glad I’m not crazy.
Seems like a perfect excuse to add hood pins to me.
My 02 Mustang has exactly the same problem, and it’s even happened once on the track (talk about embarrassing, limping to the pits and then banging on it furiously which of course wouldn’t work at the time). I have a set of Ford Racing hood pins – from the original tooling even – that I keep debating installing but I usually get deterred by the “drill holes in something perfectly good” thing.