So tonight, I went to open the trunk. No go. Trunk is firmly closed. Key appears to work completely normally, and I know that it is not the valet key. All door locks operating, and I can hear actuation at the trunk lock, but won't open. Try back and forth with key a million times, pulling on the trunk lid, etc. Try actuating all with driver's door lock, all seem to work. Try actuating with trunk lock, all seem to work. No joy. So get on the internet, including this board, and start to research and get more and more bummed at the thought of having to hire someone to slide hammer out the trunk lock, or break a tail light, or whatever other bad things, because I think that a link rod has become disconnected.
So then I use a plastic pry tool to put leverage on the trunk to open while pushing in the lock button. Try a bunch of times. Wait! Movement! The lid moved up maybe 3/16". But no matter how much I then tried to pull the trunk lid up, no go. Levered from each side doing the same, finally got a little more movement, maybe 1/8". So then I said what the heck, and REALLY pulled up on the trunk lid, like scary hard. But then it started moving and finally popped free.
The whole time, the rubber gasket on the car body was basically glued to the trunk lid! Why did this never happen before? Because.... the car is a garage queen that lives most of its life out of the sun with the trunk lid up, to allow the battery tender trickle charger cord out of the trunk, and also to allow venting any hydrogen which the battery might gas out if the charger lost its trickle mode and goes HAM on the battery. Now forward to Monday and Tuesday when I have to drive the car to work, because my wife's car is in the shop so she takes my daily, and my car is parked in the HOT sun for 2 days straight. The rubber gasket was now apparently vulcanizing itself to the trunk lid with an almost bulletproof seal. Brute force is what it took.
So I have now done one saturation run with Gummi Pflege (sp?) on that gasket, and will do several more in the coming days, to try to get some life back in that gasket! Whew!
So then I use a plastic pry tool to put leverage on the trunk to open while pushing in the lock button. Try a bunch of times. Wait! Movement! The lid moved up maybe 3/16". But no matter how much I then tried to pull the trunk lid up, no go. Levered from each side doing the same, finally got a little more movement, maybe 1/8". So then I said what the heck, and REALLY pulled up on the trunk lid, like scary hard. But then it started moving and finally popped free.
The whole time, the rubber gasket on the car body was basically glued to the trunk lid! Why did this never happen before? Because.... the car is a garage queen that lives most of its life out of the sun with the trunk lid up, to allow the battery tender trickle charger cord out of the trunk, and also to allow venting any hydrogen which the battery might gas out if the charger lost its trickle mode and goes HAM on the battery. Now forward to Monday and Tuesday when I have to drive the car to work, because my wife's car is in the shop so she takes my daily, and my car is parked in the HOT sun for 2 days straight. The rubber gasket was now apparently vulcanizing itself to the trunk lid with an almost bulletproof seal. Brute force is what it took.
So I have now done one saturation run with Gummi Pflege (sp?) on that gasket, and will do several more in the coming days, to try to get some life back in that gasket! Whew!
