Great pics, thanks. Yea whoever assembled it prior was an ass. Glad you got it fixed up.

So try something.

On my hunt to fix my rear soft close yesterday. My electrician found a couple of issues that bothered him with our BMWs. First off, my relay was jamming and causing problems. According to wiring diagrams that he has, the relay that is closest to the tail light, does two things. It runs the air susp, and the soft close. Now the problem is that according to him, those relays are garbage, and he always sees them fail, causing all sorts of random shit problems. He suggested switching out all of them to Seimans or Hella brand. He had a Seimans one that he put in there, and right away, my hatch started closing and opening. I am going to try and source them today somewhere on line, and let you know what I find.

I would not be surprised that stupid relay is giving you issues with the switch. Try swapping relays, there are two of the same kind in there. Both were purple on my car.