Fishing around in the boot of my 1996 edition S40 when I was replacing the electric aerial, I discovered a cable with a junction point. This cable was no longer connected up and therefore realising that it should be (the ends fitted together and the cable colours matched), I re-connected them.

The cable has a small rubber gromit close to the joining plastic connection, which looks as if it originally was meant to be house somewhere on the metal struts to the rear of the car, but I can't find a circular hole large enough or close enough.

The Haynes car manual doesn't appear to mention this cable at all and I can't trace it on the schematics diagram I have to the rear of this manual. Obviously a broken connection is not good and obviously it's meant to do something, but I can't find out what.

My only clue is that the rear number plate fails to illuminate and perhaps this is due to a burnt out fuse, blown bulbs or the connection I discovered (which I hastly reconnected).

I am going to be dealing with a variety of wiring issues on this car in the next week or two, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Does this cable sound familiar to you? It's black with a pink stripe through it. (or it could be pink with a thick black stripe through it). It terminates somewhere in the boot, is located behind the boot liner on the lefthand side of the car, tucked into the wing area underneath the aerial and runs front to back of the car.

Somewhere in the rear wing it has (for no apparent reason) a plastic joining connection (in black) and also a rubber gromit (again I can find no reason for it).

The previous owner had disconnected it and the connection was slightly damaged, possibly completely faulty.

Any advice greatly received!