Good evening peeps
Car is a 2012 RRS SDV6 HSE one-piece tailgate.
An emergency fault in that we are on holiday and I can't close the tailgate!

Not long after buying the car last summer, the tailgate would intermittently not open on any button.
Once open it would not latch, I.e. close fully on the soft close then after 2-3 seconds it would back off. So the car thought it was open, so wouldn't open. But also it wasn't closed, so i couldn't lock it.

I replaced the latch and adjusted the catch all the way back and it worked fine for a while.

A few weeks ago it started again. So I bought a tailgate button (between the number plate lights).
This afternoon it failed to open so I climbed into the boot and picked the latch to open by putting a pen insert into the little slot in the right of the exposed latch.
Then it wouldn't close.

It appears the soft close latch will not rotate passed halfway. Closing the tailgate manually effectively bangs the latch against the catch. It does not even attempt to close?
How could I reset the soft close mechanism? Is there a fuse for it?

I would appreciate any help please?

All I know is its some form of dark art

My latch won't soft close however much adjusting I did. So I swapped it out for a new one from a Ford Galaxy thingy (same item) and still no joy. I can't find anything on line about how they should be installed so as the soft close works. Its obviously some sort of sensor in the unit itself but damned if I can work it out. Sometimes even the smallest change in its positioning is enough to mean it doesn't work. Best I've had is intermittently but that was with the old unit.

The upper tailgate won't open if it thinks the lower tailgate is open and vs v. Sometimes the button for the lower tailgate won't work, so lock/unlock with the dash button usually fixes that.

Got there in the end.
I stumped for a genuine part.
Fitted.
Worked straight off the bat.