Hatch Headaches

I presume the doors behaved normally but you had to crawl on the deck, pop the cover, & spring the hatch. Before moving the car I would have checked the voltage on the 12v battery & ask the guy what he did or didn't do.

 

The problem might be a bad hatch switch; or it might be the Smart sensor located in the rear bumper not picking up the fob signal when you are back there trying to open the hatch. Or, as you stated, the hatch lock actuator might not be working.

 

It might be as simple as the rear netting getting caught in the lock mechanism. Same thing happened to me with the rear hatch getting stuck, however, every thing else seemed to be working correctly. I crawled through and manually opened the hatch as it was very much stuck and noticed that the rear netting had gotton caught! After that I always make sure when closing the rear hatch to visually check to see that the netting is away from the locking mechanism. I hope this is your problem as a simple fix!

 

No. There are several sensors: one on the driver's side front door, one on the passenger's side front door, one near the center console inside the car, one in the hatch area, and one near the rear bumper. The reason it is required to have all these sensors is so that the Smart ECU can determine roughly where the fob is located, and control the car's operation accordingly.

For example, if the fob is located outside the car, the car's power up status should not change when the POWER switch is depressed. Further, if the fob is located near the driver's door, the rear hatch or the passenger door should not be able to be unlocked and opened.

If the fob is deemed to be within the car, then it is OK for the car to power up when the POWER switch is depressed, but it would not be OK for someone outside the car to be able to unlock either of the front doors or the hatch.

 

Whens the last time you changed the FOB battery?

Please humor me:
With the foot NOT on the brake push the power button slowly twice. That puts the car in ignition mode and puts a load on the 12 volt battery. Measure that voltage now please and report.

 

Flyboytr did a great write-up (with pictures) about a problem he was having with his hatch. It wasn't the same as yours, but the text and pictures will show you how to inspect the latch and wiring. It's very possible a careless person damaged the wiring while tossing the spare back in the trunk. Here's his post: Door Open (Ajar) Warning Light Staying On: REPAIRED | PriusChat

 

Nope 14.4 is when the car is in READY and is being charged. Meaningless for our experiment. Plz try again.

Also can you lock the hatch by pushing the little black button back there. If not it may be prox sensors as Pat mentioned.

 

Good catch. You may have water ingress into trunk that has now dried up. Pull the spare tire out and look real close in the well under the tire and with a flashlight look into the well where the base of the 12 volt battery sits. See if you see signs of water that has dried up like rust etc. Many reports of water leak into that area from various cracked weld seams. Your car is not a rebuild from an accident is it?

BTW, your 12 volt check of the battery reveals the 12 is getting tired. Should be at least 12.3 in that mode. I would watch it or up your maintenance on it by doing a bimonthly battery charge. Alot of us do that here as its a good way of keeping an eye on that 12 volt battery health and periodic max charging it is very good for the battery. Takes 5 minutes.

You DO NOT want to get caught with a dead 12 in this car.

 

Being a new owner and interested in learning more about this great little car, I love this kind of thread where there was a problem presented, questions asked and suggestions made, and finally the issue uncovered and repaired, and with pictures!! A great resource, thank you guys.

At the risk of belaboring the issue, other than water creeping in and flooding this area, which seems not to be the case, do some of you, that are more electronically knowledgeable than I, have any ideas why this connector would disintegrate like this in 6 years? I recall a child's electric car that our son rode for hours each day had a similar looking connector that got very hot and also began to disintegrate. I wonder if a heat issue inside the connector could be a factor? If not, what else could cause this?

 

Since well is dry may be the connector overheated from excessive load like it melted like the electric hatch mech was pulling way to much current. Never seen any reports of that here. You have a one off odd issue. I would cut that harness out and bypass with crimps.
Might want to do a simple test and open the door and turn on headlights and then while watching the headlight strength open the back hatch and see how much the headlights dim during the release. The release mech may be messed up. i doubt the lights should dim at all. But can't recall any reports of that other than the outside rubber handle melting which my car had also.

Or there was some corrosion on the connector itself creating resistance which cause heat and will melt the plug. But thats weird to as the hatch release is so quick a current draw. Just plain weird.

 

oh its been beautiful the last month. No ac needed nor any heat. And here come the birds & the traffic!