Wagons beware - tailgate electricals

I checked mine a little while ago and had no chafing or any damage. I did wrap each side bundle of wires up with electrical tape to give them some added protection.

None of mine were chafed just broken

Insulation was broken on the black (ground) wire. Taped it up and put it back. The rest of them looked pretty good. Maybe I don't use my hatch enough??

I'm afraid this gremlin just appeared in my '05 2.5i wagon, which now has 162K miles on the clock. For the past several weeks I noticed that my hatch has not been locking, and if I open the hatch without hitting the unlock button on the remote fob first, the alarm will go off.

 

A new problem just arose, the other 4 doors still lock and unlock with the key fob remote, but the audible tone stopped functioning.

 

My rear wiper and washer are still working. I am going to check to make sure all my brake, license, and backup lights are working properly. I will file a NHTSA complaint.

 

Has anyone had luck in getting SOA to cover the repair?

press both lock and unlock buttons on the remote for 5-10 seconds that enables and disables the beep.

press both lock and unlock buttons on the remote for 5-10 seconds that enables and disables the beep.

 

Solved that mystery! I must have sat on my keys funny or something. I pressed the keys simultaneouly, and the beep is back.

 

I popped off the rubber boot for the wire harness, and all of my wires look tits. Perhaps there's something wrong with the lock mechanism.

Solved that mystery! I must have sat on my keys funny or something. I pressed the keys simultaneouly, and the beep is back.

 

I popped off the rubber boot for the wire harness, and all of my wires look tits. Perhaps there's something wrong with the lock mechanism.

 

There's a small panel that you can remove on the inside of your hatch. Once inside, there's a lever you can push up and down to manually lock/unlock the hatch. I had a locking mechanism go out a couple years ago and it was a pretty easy fix, the part is like $80 at the dealer and it takes 20 min to swap.

I think I might have this problem as well. When I bought the car (used), the rear wiper wasn't working, so at first I thought it was just a bad wiper motor. Nope.

 

The strange thing is, I can measure 12V at the wiper connector, so the wires can't be completely broken. I guess either the wire is frayed enough that there's too much current draw with the motor actually connected, or maybe the ground is bad.

 

Either way, I might take a look at the harness this weekend before I have the dealer look at it on Monday.

Several wires were cracked on my '05. Couple of hours of splicing/soldering in new wires fixed all issues (Wacky intermittent wiper, rear hatch not locking, etc.)

^ thanks fellow montrealer

 

did you register with the canadian registry i posted a few pages back ?

 

as i believe every single 05-07? wagon will have this issue.

When I first got my LGT the license plate lights didn't work. Sure enough, pulled the boot at the passenger side and the purple wire was chewed through.

 

So cut, crimp, add wire, crimp. All good.

 

I wonder if they just packed too much in the space they allowed for the wires and the boot.

@ frank_ster ...just submitted the Canadian defect form.

Thanks for the reminder.

Just sitting at the dealership now - I took a quick look at the harness over the weekend and didn't see any obvious breaks or cracks in the wiring. The dealer confirmed it was a harness problem, so I bit the bullet and just bought a new OEM harness. As usual, Canadians get assraped on pricing - they charged me $114 (plus tax); SubaruGenuineParts has it for $64. That's nearly a 100% markup.

^ dont encourage the dealer ! they should be fixing it for free ! take it to a local guy..

So I ended up replacing the whole wiring harness (which is a PITA, by the way), then I looked over the old one to find the problem.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d122/sbanman/car%20pics/DSC_0142Large.jpghttp://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d122/sbanman/car%20pics/DSC_0143Large.jpg

 

One broken wire in the boot:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d122/sbanman/car%20pics/DSC_0144Large.jpg

Little bit of OCD eh ? ^

Well I did what has been done before by members here! After painstakingly soldering broken wires with heat shrink wrap and electrical tape for good measure, I gave in and purchased a new wiring loom....the same problems were starting to appear again. It had to be ordered in from Japan to Australia and cost me $175AUD. It took me about 3 hours to get it done - the hardest part were the plastic lugs and also a couple of the connectors were really hard to disconnect - WTF!!

 

Anyway - its all done and everything is back to normal. Although I do have a couple of broken wires in the left hand rubber accordion now...sigh.

^- Yeah, I have no idea why they made those white plastic lugs so damned difficult to remove. I managed to pull a couple without breaking them, but most of them I was too impatient to finesse them out. I guess they were only intended for one-time usage.

Thanks for posting all the helpful info here. I lost the rear wiper almost a year ago, then lost the license plate light more recently. I just filed a NHTSA safety complaint.

 

Does anyone happen to have the part number for the 2005 Outback harness in the lift gate?

 

Did anyone try contacting SOA?

Thanks for posting all the helpful info here. I lost the rear wiper almost a year ago, then lost the license plate light more recently. I just filed a NHTSA safety complaint.

 

Does anyone happen to have the part number for the 2005 Outback harness in the lift gate?

 

Did anyone try contacting SOA?

 

Do you want to buy mine? I bought a new harness and installed it, but then fixed the broken wire in my old one (see previous page). Some of the plastic clips are broken, but otherwise it should work fine. I think the Legacy and Outback would use the same part #s.

 

That being said, the replacement part # for mine was: 81812AG03B.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Arcteryx

Do you want to buy mine? I bought a new harness and installed it, but then fixed the broken wire in my old one (see previous page). Some of the plastic clips are broken, but otherwise it should work fine. I think the Legacy and Outback would use the same part #s.

 

That being said, the replacement part # for mine was: 81812AG03B.

 

Thanks, but I already ordered a replacement. I also scheduled to have the dealer do the repair. Not cheap, but it's freaking cold right now in MN, and I don't have a heated garage to work in. I think those 13 connectors would be awful to work with in the cold. It took me several minutes just to get the wiper connector off when it was much warmer.

 

I filed a complaint with SOA, and also with NHTSA. SOA replied that the problem is not widespread, or at least people are not reporting it. Maybe it is only a problem on a small batch of cars that were sold/operated in cold weather markets.

After reading this, I locked my car, walked over to the hatch and opened it... Alarm goes crazy... Apparently my lock wire is unhappy.... :/ and my radio sucks compared to my wife's car... But I'm assuming that's a coax cable up to the front? I think that issue is a nicked trace

After reading this, I locked my car, walked over to the hatch and opened it... Alarm goes crazy... Apparently my lock wire is unhappy.... :/ and my radio sucks compared to my wife's car... But I'm assuming that's a coax cable up to the front? I think that issue is a nicked trace

 

the antenna is in the rear window and i think the drivers side rear window.

Thanks, but I already ordered a replacement. I also scheduled to have the dealer do the repair. Not cheap, but it's freaking cold right now in MN, and I don't have a heated garage to work in. I think those 13 connectors would be awful to work with in the cold. It took me several minutes just to get the wiper connector off when it was much warmer.

 

I filed a complaint with SOA, and also with NHTSA. SOA replied that the problem is not widespread, or at least people are not reporting it. Maybe it is only a problem on a small batch of cars that were sold/operated in cold weather markets.

 

 

Any good body shop can do the same repair for less money. They do this kind of work all the time after accidents.

 

My buddy's body shop fixed my wires for 110.00

Sounds like i'm going to get a little OCD myself and re-wire the whole thing... ;-)