I'm not following. Why would you cut the wires when you can just pull the connector out of the back of the switch?

Besides that, cutting the wires or simply disconnecting the switch would render it inoperable. What if I want it to work, but I just want a protective cover over it so that groceries flying around back there when I take hard curves going home don't hit the button and lock me out? That's what I was expressing surprise nobody has offered as a mod. We get some dumb as shit mods for this car, yet this is something actually useful that wouldn't cost a whole lot to produce in China and would probably sell pretty well, considering how often this question arises.

I was under the understanding that you wanted to render it useless.

It's already useless. :sigh:

Whelp, I just went out and confirmed something unfortunate. If you remove the switch, the trunk switch doesn't work at all. If it has to be part of the circuit, cutting the wires also wouldn't work. You'd have to cut them and solder them back together to bypass it.

So I'd still rather find a cover for it than hack into the wiring.

This thread reminded me about something that came up in my last service at a Toyota dealer (actually my first Toyota Care service). I keep the remote trunk opening disabled so it only opens with a master key. I gave the service guy only the "valet" key. I thought this would prevent them from checking the spare pressure, which was OK with me. (It's a royal pain to check it.)

After the service they gave me a long checklist of stuff they (supposedly) checked, and surprisingly it included the spare tire pressure. What are the odds they really checked the spare? I'm thinking fairly low. But do they have a secret way (a master key? something dealer only?) of getting into the trunk? (It is the dealer where I bought the car if that would matter.)

I mean, they could get into it the way anyone else could get into it. Release the latches from inside the car. The trunk is by no means a secure space. The valet mode is just a deterrent to prevent the uninitiated from snooping through your things, but anyone familiar with the car will know you can just open it from the cabin.

Of course that would also have meant crawling in there and popping the trunk open too, which I doubt a tech would bother doing, so unless they have a master key, then I dunno whether they did or didn't check it.