[mikepellegrini]

Yeah, they're a real flaming PITA.

I don't think adjusting the striker plate will do anything. All that does is change the way the latch interacts with the body when the door closes.

I've had the same problem as you, where it seems like the rod is too short, even when you've lengthened the thing as far as it will go. I had that happen with my 951.

On that, I think I had it too far; I backed it off a little and now it works pretty good. But I think it took me several hours of screwing with it to find that "sweet spot."

See if you can figure out how it was adjusted originally - can you look at the threads on the thing and see how far in it was - is there dirt/crud on the threads which shows how far in/out it was adjusted? If so, adjust is just slightly farther than the original position.

Try that and see if it works.

The thing (if I remember correctly) pushes down, so you'd think the longer the better, but at least on my car, it didn't work that way.

Gotta love 'em!