I accidentally closed the hatch door on a terry towel and now my hatch won't open. When I use the key fob to unlock the doors, I hear the click. It allows me to lock the door. The dash does not indicate that any doors are left open. I've tried clearing as much of the towel out as possible. I've tried to follow these instructions to manually open the hatch using the lever but am not sure if I'm pulling the lever with the correct amount of force for fear of real damage. Specifically for the lever, I've tried to pull the lever to the left (counter-clockwise) - it does with ease but nothing happens. I've tried pulling the lever towards me (front of the car) but no luck with minimal force. Do I need to use a lot of force? Any help would be greatly appreciated! My last resort is to take it to the dealer tomorrow morning.
Is the towel stuck in the latch mechanism or off to the side? If it's off to the side, try putting weight on the hatch to force it down on the towel, to remove tension from the latch mechanism. Hopefully, this will allow the latch to move freely and unlock.
Unfortunately, we think it's stuck in the latch mechanism Will try putting force on the hatch to see if it helps though.
Try going in from the back door, put your fingers under the towel, search for the actual latch in the latch hole. Push in different directions but I think down will release it. This happened to me with my power cord and I cut it, I later found this method. What happens is that anything of the proper thickness, the power cord is enough to remove the mechanical slack therefore the trunk hatch will move neither up nor down, hence stays stuck. Good Luck on Christmas Day.
Toyota thought of this and provided a fix, the problem is you must attack it from a prone position from the rear door ( good workout )
When this actually works, you will be amazed at the amount of light that pours in from above and opens up a wider World. You will probably convert, ....... To something maybe our Prius God.
Thank you. Because of the somewhat cold weather, I decided to take it to the dealer in the morning. The first guy tried to press and pull (like you normally do) and nada. I asked what would need to happen next, and he said they'd probably need to take the trim apart...oh boy. Then another gentleman saw what was happening and just told the guy to pull up harder and VOILA - it opened! Thanks everyone for your help!
