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This past weekend I took care of the tailgate wiring faults that have been mocking me for the last few months. No rear wiper, intermittent locking solenoid, and a total lack of license plate lamps made it all too clear what the fix was going to be. Rather than go the factory route, I opted to cure the problem for good and route them through the headliner and into the hatch from inside the car, versus through the hinges.

I did try to keep it neat by installing brass grommets into the headliner and routing the wires through them. Turned out pretty darned nice, and all the tailgate devices work as they should, which makes for a real sense of satisfaction.

To anyone looking to do this job, I suggest getting a brass grommet kit from Ace Hardware or Lowe's. It was a challenge to install the grommets without dropping a significant portion of the headliner, but some ingenuity took care of the problem in short order.

I did take the extra measure of pushing caulk into the hinge voids now left empty by the wiring reroute, so as to ward off the possibility of leaks.