I have a 2006 XLE that I bought in Nov 2005. I'm quite happy with it, but I'm having two minor problems with it that currently aren't worth my time to take it to the dealer to deal with. And like a dummy, I forgot to mention it the last time I was at the dealer for my 5000 mile service. I'm only at 8000 miles now, and it'll be a while before I hit the 10000 service mark. But I thought maybe someone here might know what the root problem is. There are two problems, actually, but I believe they are related. For some time now, probably since Feburary 2006, my trunk has been quite difficult to close. I have to shut it three, four, sometimes five times before it latches (I didn't have this problem with my previous '03 Camry LE). Using more/less force doesn't seem to change the outcome: sometimes I try to slam it and it doesn't latch; sometimes it does. If I close it gently, sometimes it doesn't latch sometimes it does.

Also, the interior trunk light stops working sometimes. When it first did it, i thought I had killed the bulb by slamming the trunk too hard; this was basically after the first time the trunk started giving me trouble. But when I inspected it, it was okay, and a few weeks later started working again. After a while, it stoped working again. Then a few weeks later, it was okay again. And so on. I suspect this is related to the trunk latch as well because obviously there must be something in the trunk latch mechanism that turns the interior light on and off so it doesn't light up when the trunk is closed. The light is currently not working.

But I cannot see anything that is obviously out of whack. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the trunk light itself (although I haven't looked at it recently): the bulb was okay the last time I looked at it, and I didn't see any loose wires. But I also don't see anything that interesting going on with the latch on the trunk door.

So does any one have any idea what might be going on here, or what I should be looking at?