There seems to be a common problem with accessing your boot on the x type when the electrics fail, I've seen various posts informing how to access your boot but non without actually damaging your car to gain access.


I've managed to come up with a relatively simple way to gain access without damaging the exterior bodywork or fitments and minimal damage to the interior fittings that can be easily repaired or sourced from a second hand dealer costing around £5.00


Firstly you need to remove the back seat, (if you do not have a folding split rear seat). Firstly lift the lower seat from the car by pulling the front corners of the seat vertically and they will lift out of their retaining clips, slide the seat belt harness through the holes in the back of your seat to allow the lower seat to be completely removed from the car.


The rear part of the seat is secured by 2 size 55 hex bolts that need to be removed using a socket wrench, once they are out, the rear seat needs lifting vertically to unclip the back retaining slots from their position, this allows you to slide the seat sideways out of the vehicle, carefully holding the rear seatbelts to allow removal of the seat but leaving the seat belts in situ and untouched.


You can then see access to the boot by 5 holes in the rear seat interior chassis. This has a sound proof covering simply pressed into the boot side and can be carefully pushed out by removing the plastic securing pins, keeping them safe as they will need to be used again to retain the cover when you put the car back together.


Once this has been removed you can see into the boot of the car. The holes however are not large enough for an adult to squeeze through, if you have a small person / child in your tool box to access the boot through one of these holes the job is quite easy as the boot lock can be opened by putting a hooked / screwdriver / coat hanger / etc down the opening on the top left hand side of the cover, it needs a bit of persuasion to bypass the cover inside but will go in and hook onto the lock to manually pull up and the lock will open. Job done.!


However if you don't have a small person that will fit through the hole you need a long Philips head screwdriver around 2' long to gently unscrew the retaining plugs on each side of the plastic lock cover sufficiently to enable you to get a long flat implement (I used an old arc welding rod bent at the end but a coat hanger would do the same etc) behind the centre plug to enable you to pull it out. this then allows the whole retaining plug to pulled out releasing the cover. Unfortunately the cover still cant be removed at this point as the locking mechanism is holding it in place when the boot is shut.
This is where the only bit of damage is done, the cover is made / sealed down the rear of the lock that is held in place by the boot being locked. Simply pull hard on the cover towards you and the rear of the cover should split in two down that joint, allowing the cover to be removed and access to the boot lock mechanism.


You can then put a standard screwdriver into the locking mechanism and lift it up unlocking the boot.


The cover can be sourced on ebay / breakers etc for around £5.00 but I glued mine back together again down the seal and its been ok so far..!


I will upload some photos shortly to assist in the above description.


Good luck.

 

Nice one,thanks for sharing.

Looking forward to the accompanying pics, should be good.

 

Certainly beats smashing out the taillight.

 

Seems to be the way to keep costs to a minimum. Although I still haven't worked out what is actually wrong with the lock at this point. I've left the investigating until the temperature get a little warmer to start fiddling around with it. I put a temporary pull cable through the rear centre arm rest so the lock can be opened from inside the car.
Using cable ties (CT) from the £1 shop, to link the cable to the lock mechanism, then feeding the cable through another CT attached to the folded chassis on the boot lid, allows the cable to be pulled vertically unlocking the lock then simply feed it through the rear sound proofing cover at the top and into the cabin through the side of the cloth cover at the back of your arm rest, you can open and shut the boot lid from then on securely from inside the car.

 

Further update, I managed to get to the bottom of what the fault was with the lock. The reason it stopped working was due to a broken wire in the rubber shrouding between the boot lid and the main chassis of the car. Apparently this is a common fault and worth checking before doing anything else as the wiring at the lock itself was showing as sending and receiving the signal to open the lock but instead was lighting up the rear number plate lights, looking like a bad earth. Further bridging wires direct to the locking motor does not activate it and gives the impression it has failed. Hope this helps any member with this problem in the future.

 

Now you're in the trunk (boot), put in a fix that'll save you next time. US cars have an emergency pull thingy to open the trunk if you get stuck inside. Really! Get a long plastic tie on the little stitch where the pull thingy attaches onto. Feed it through a hole under your tag/plate. Now if you are locked out of the trunk just take your tag/plate off and pull the tie.
It works! And nobody knows it's there except you.

 

After driving the car for the last 3 months (wasn't going to look at it in the ice and hurricane season) having to open the "trunk" with a wire that had been fed through in the back seat folding arm, that was the first thing I did. ;-))


I'm also going to leave an attached cable tie sticking out of the top of the lock cover in the trunk / boot just in case..!!!!