Aaaaahhhhhaaaaa!!!

FINALLY figured out what was wrong with my rear door popper. Originally I was looking for all of the complicated stuff; blown solenoid, fried switch, toasted relay, but the culprit ended up being a severed wire.

I should have looked at the wiring first because everything was working fine after installation, and the fact that it suddenly stopped working should have clued me in.

I used a volt meter to check that the switch and relay where getting power (they where), and when I pushed the switch power would flow through the relay just fine. When I tested the wire at the back door by the solenoid there was no power. I thought that maybe I just had a bum wire so I started to re-run a new wire using the old one to pull it through. When I tugged on the old wire in the jack cubby it popped right out and the end was crushed and cut.

The wire loom coming in from the door passes through a rubber grommet that MUST be seated in a little niche in a metal plate to the rear of the VX in the jack cubby because if it isn't the door stop pivots into that same area when the door closes. I guess when I originally ran the wire for the popper I didn't re-seat this grommet into the niche and over the course of a couple of months, as the rear door opened and closed, the door stop must have been crushing the wires against the metal plate and eventually cut the popper wire (this could be the issue with someone's rear defroster not working). This time I made darn sure that the wire loom was protected in it's rubber grommet, and totally seated into that niche so, hopefully, this won't happen again.

Thanks to everyone for the advice and the patience, because I know that I've written more than a couple of threads lamenting the woes of my rear door popper.