I guess I should be clear. I went inside. Opened the manual and read it for a while. Then given that the manual also stated what I was trying was correct I decided to go back outside and try again. My wife had her key and was inside the house more then 30 feet from the back of the vehicle. I had my key in my front pocket. I had nothing else in my pockets and didn't have on a jacket or anything. I walked past the front door, the interior lights came on, kept walking, reached the back of the car and stood there for 5 minutes attempting to open the trunk with various techniques that were outlined here and in my manual. Nothing seemed to have an effect. Decided that being out when it was so cold with no jacket fighting with a brand new car wasn't worth it at that point, I went back inside. My wife said, oh here in the manual it says that this feature can be turned off but by default it is on. So her guess, and mine also, is that someone at Toyota turned this off on this car and I need to go back to the dealership to get them to activate my trunk release.

All other methods to release the trunk work. I can pull the lever inside the car, I can hold down the trunk button on the remote, and I can use the valet key thing (yes I know it is opposite of a normal valet key but I haven't read enough to know what it is really called).

Maybe they did this on purpose since I pushed so hard on price they wanted to punish me .