Trunk Stuck Closed? Here's how to get inside and fix it (with PICS)

[thatsnotstock]

So I went out to my car yesterday and realized that my trunk popper wasnt working. I could hit the 'pop' button on the remote all I wanted and it still wouldn't pop. There was ZERO tension on the lever inside the car.

I decided to take it upon myself to fix it, since I've noticed people on here just caving and taking their cars to Honda, I figured maybe I can save someone a hundred bucks and some frustration. Difficulty of this is about a 2 out of 10 if you know your way around cars.

First off, clean out your back seat. You're going to be crawling around back there like crazy



Next, you'll need to locate the seat's two attachment points.

The first one is a long bolt that connects the two back seats at the split/fold point. Peel back the seat padding to reveal it like so.



Use a wrench (or a socket if you have one) to completely remove this bolt. Turn it towards the trunk to loosen. Toss it in the cup holder so you don't lose it

Next, is the difficult bolt. Peel back the seat padding to reveal it.



The bolt 'enters' the cabin through the trunk, reach back BEHIND the triangle-shaped bit of exposed frame. Stick a wrench back there and slowly work the bolt loose. The nut is welded to the frame, so don't even bother.

With these two bolts gone, you should be able to rotate the BOTTOM of the seat up towards the roof. The seatback will come free of the rest of the seat. If that doesnt work, rotate it up, reach back into the trunk, and pull the seat releases, and fold the seats down. Hurray! You're in!!

Now since I had NO tension in the in-car trunk release handle, I figured that the cable had come loose. The following picture is how the mechanism SHOULD look.



In MY case, the two tinnnnny bolts that held the poper mechanism to the trunk lid had sheared off, causing the entire assembly (cable included) to swing free (held only by the wires for the poper). I needed to reattach it, and put the cable back into place). To accomplish this, I slowly backed what was left of them out of the bracket(which is threaded) and replaced them with a 5/40 3/4" hex head bolt, and loctited them into place. Picture of the NEW bolt below. Keep in mind that if this is the same problem you've got, you'll need to replace both bolts



With both bolts replaced, make sure the cable is seated as pictured (should be pretty obvious, but if you get confused, hit the pop button and see what moves). Close the trunk and hit the button, Viola!

Don't forget to make sure your in-car trunk release has tension again before you clean up. Simply reverse the bolt removal (big middle bolt first) to get your back seat back in place.

Hope this helps! Now get out there and

[Zeuceone]

real nice diy. its honda's problem.

[Ruthless909]

Very nice writeup!

[thatsnotstock]

sure is, but when you've got 70k miles, they don't give a squirt.

I think i forgot to mention that you're likely to DESTROY one of your fingers doing this. I think I'm still bleeding and I did all the work today at 2pm. :)

[Excalibur]

They need a tsb for this. Thanks for the writeup though.

[thatsnotstock]

glad i could help.


what would a tsb possibly do? there's no way they'd relocate the in trunk flip fold release latches, I mean...look at them...



Good luck finding a place in-cabin for those!

.....

or are you talking a tsb for the shearing off bolts?

[alienshards]

^ after reading about this problem, I was actually thinking of relocating on of the releases into the cabin after hearing about this problem. It would stick up near the LATCH points, and pretty much be out of the way...

[thatsnotstock]

If you do it, make sure to do a DIY!

[fg2!kid]

nice write up

[07mugencivic]

good stuff.....

[thatsnotstock]

thanks guys. I forgot to add that this is 'parking lot emergency' do-able. All I had at the time was a multitool.

[ooskers]

Can this get stickied? Maybe?

[yacoub]

thanks!

[thatsnotstock]

glad i could help! what a stupid design flaw. Mods, can we move this to the DIY section and sticky it?

[riceK]

wait a minute in my Si i have a keyhole that releases the back seats down..... Unless this is only prevelant to the coupe model or something. I have 07 Si Sedan and I don't see the need for this, unless of course you are unfortunate enough to have locked your keys in the trunk somehow then this is gud info. Gud write-up plus rep anyways for trying

[rmfa]

Originally Posted by riceK

wait a minute in my Si i have a keyhole that releases the back seats down..... Unless this is only prevelant to the coupe model or something. I have 07 Si Sedan and I don't see the need for this, unless of course you are unfortunate enough to have locked your keys in the trunk somehow then this is gud info. Gud write-up plus rep anyways for trying

I don't have a way to get into my trunk if the popper doesn't work. I have an FG2. No keyhole on the trunk and no keyhole in the back deck to let the seats down. I only have a keyhole to lock the popper on the drivers side.

[thatsnotstock]

Originally Posted by rmfa

I don't have a way to get into my trunk if the popper doesn't work. I have an FG2. No keyhole on the trunk and no keyhole in the back deck to let the seats down. I only have a keyhole to lock the popper on the drivers side.

exact same. none of our cars have a way to release the seatbacks from the inside of the car.