I seem to be on a constant repair cycle for this car, I'm fortunate to have my own workshop and experience repairing cars, or my partner would be a fair few £££ down after owning this car for almost a year.

The latest ongoing saga is the boot latch, we noticed a problem with the boot latch after around a month of ownership. The tailgate was out of alignment and had a worn/broke the plastic guide on the electric latch, two reasons one power strut-obvious cost cutting, and a flexible tailgate. I realigned the tailgate, but the plastic guide was fouling the locking pawl. These electric latches are sold in abundance on all the chinese cheap sites, a tell tale sign of a common fault. We tried to purchase from ali express, but it kept failing customs due to it being an unprotected magnetic motor, finally got one from ebay. I fitted it but noticed a slight click when it had released before lifting the tailgate, almost like the internal electric release hadn't completely disengaged.  The latch had been in for 4 months when it failed, my partner called me - the tailgate won't release, it just makes werring noise!! To manually release the tailgate you have to move a small lever with a screwdriver, got to thank youtube for that info . We purchased another latch on a 2 day turn around, I fitted it and noticed the silent smooth operation straight away. Now the fight to return the broken latch, Ebay doesn't offer protection of chinese products beyond 30days, we contacted the seller and went through a back and forth message exchange until they finally agreed on a 70% refund, we are talking various videos, proof of car type; twice, a starting offer of 10%, we even offered to send it back for inspection, a frustrating experience.

The original latch which failed was chinese, so not OEM, we put another chinese one back in which failed, we have purchased another chinese one (this is slightly different) let's see how long that lasts. I would have bitten the bullet for an OEM latch, but the car is 2018 and the original ford unit had failed for some reason, I'm not sure if a Ford unit would be the answer and we are only in it for around £50 so far, changing the latch is a 10 minute job.

I have shown a photo of the failed unit and internal gear

Now the Horn has given up! Looking on forums it always seems to be the actual horn that fails and not fuse or relay. 

 

Interesting, I'm thinking of a project here for my little CNCV lathe, something along the lines of knocking up Alloy gear sets for these motor assemblies.

Just a little update on the fixes to the car, the boot latch is still working fine. Whilst on the tailgate, I had also replaced the third brake light with an Ali express unit, the first purchase was incorrectly labelled by the seller and an absolute nightmare getting it changed, Ali express customer services didn't want to get involved because I hadn't flagged it before the 60day period.

Next on the agenda was the front horn. The Ford wiring loom accommodates 2 horns for other models, we had just the one, it's located under the front slam panel and is a bit of a sod to remove, you think there's loads of room, but stuff is just in the way. Anyway, we purchased a generic EBAY unit (£10) and I fitted it with ease of extraction in mind, I had to cut out the second horn plug for universal fitment.

The car has been into the bodyshop for bottom door paint protection, these cars have a lip on the bottom of the door to cover the sill, this stops you getting mucky when entering or exiting the car, unfortunately the design also means that the bottom of the door takes a beating from all the aggressive silt and salt leading to premature rusting, the bodyshop advised further silicone protection to prevent any damage to the new paint.

The is still my partner's favourite car that she has owned. The cam belt will be replaced on the 26th of Feb 2026 at a price of around £400 for the whole kit- belt, tensioner, waterpump and accessory belt, we're doing it a little earlier than recommended and I'm not doing it because she wants to have paperwork for service records. The gearbox was serviced by the dealer as a purchase sweetener.

D

The third brake light change is on my list.

Do you have the link to the Aliexpress one you bought please?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009260859521.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.5.497d1802AYTj9P

I also purchased the correct thicker double sided tape here:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262341493165

hope this gets you sorted.

There are videos on youtube that help with the task, I used a jimmy bar wrapped in a cloth to prise away the spoiler from the body. It was a horrible job, the Americam ford explorer has a similar setup. Be careful of the plastic covered nuts, the thread can be quite tight and pull the tab out of it's seat in the spoiler, Good luck

Thanks for that. I have seen the videos, but still plucking up the courage, I was hoping you'd say how easy it was 😆