Rear tailgate Boot Latch T6 Ocean 2017

egena · Aug 13, 2022

Hello everyone,
I'm in the process of troubleshooting my rear bootlatch and opening mechanism which began behaving irratic about 3 months ago.

SYMPTOM:
When sitting reading/watching a film, the rear opening mechanism would trigger and the boot would release, whether the weather was wet or dry. It would randomly continue for a period of time then stop. It would not do this if the van was locked either using the internal lock switch on the drivers door or the key fob when leaving the vehicle (thankfully) which allowed me to rule out a Management Module malfunction (that particular management module sits next to your right knee behind the dash on the right hand front seat (UK version))
The boot continued to function ok so I delayed investigation until the day finally came when the opening mechanism (solenoid) stopped activating, effectively rendering the boot locked shut for good.

INVESTIGATION
With my hand forced, I set about gaining access to the boot. This wasn't too difficult but it involved patience;
- Slide bench forwards
- Remove all bedding
- Unpop the rear cage shelf and lift/take out
- Empty the boot contents so all clear
- Place blanket down for comfort
- Force fingers into area where the Zip can be grabbed and undo the picnic chair cover
- force the cover upwards so its open and the chairs can be seen
- Dead center, between both chairs, at the base of the tailgate door, remove circular black rubber bung/gromit
- Insert a finger and feel downwards until you sense a thin metal horizontal bar
- Push firmly downward on this thin bar and the boot latch releases (have someone the other side to open the tailgate of this helps)

OK, so now the tailgate is open

TWO MECHANISMS

With the tailgate opened it was easy to see that it wasn't possible to observe anything of value and that the picnic chairs and cover would need to be taken out of the way;
- Remove both chairs
- unscrew and remove the pull handle that sits in the center of the tailgate on the inside
- locate and remove several black screws holding the picnic chair cover (only the screws near the bottom of the tailgate - I found I didn't necessarily need to remove them all)
- Some of the black screws my just rotate and not undo which is a design flaw from VW so use your fingers or perhaps 90° pliers or similar to reach behind them (I used fingers)
- peer inside the tailgate and you will see what looks to be a black mounting bracket with a white plastic device on top of it;

It has two cable connectors plugged into it - the blue one was the boot switch you press outside to open it and the white one, for me, was the 12v power that is given when the solenoid is activated.
- The boot latch is the second mechanism which is visible clearly from the outside as its the big black hooking mechanism however this, too, has a cable connector on it from the inside which detects the position of the catch hook to allow the Van to know when to pull in the soft-close pole which sits recessed inside the boot floor behind mini plastic sprung doors.

I verified this my pushing my finger into the tailgate boot latch, pretending to be the pole it usually connects with, and I heard the soft-close pole on the boot floor motorise inwards.

FINDING REPLACEMENTS

Thankfully this wasn't too hard as VW use both mechanisms in a lot of their vehicles;