Causes of a Car Hood That Won’t Close or Lock
If your hood won’t close or lock, that’s a serious problem that needs to be solved. Now that you understand all of the different components and how they work, hopefully you have a better understanding of how the following issues can occur. And perhaps more importantly, hopefully you have a better idea of how to diagnose and fix each of the issues, if they occur.
1) Incorrect Cable Tension
Over time, the tension on the release cable can become too loose, and when this happens, the hood latch will not lock. However, if you tighten it too much in an attempt to fix the problem, the hood will not close properly.
In this case, the cable release will always be pressing against the spring, which will cause the latch to be constantly open and unable to close properly after being released.
2) Misaligned Hood Latch
The hood latch only works if the hood latch and the engine bay latch are aligned when you close the hood. If any one part is even slightly out of alignment, the metal will clash when you try to close the hood, and the latch will not work.
3) Broken/Rusted Hood Latch
It’s fairly rare for the actual metal of the hood latch to break, but it can rust and eventually the whole part will rust. When this happens, it will no longer work properly, and you’ll only be able to pull up on the hood even if everything else is working fine.
4) Lack of Lubrication
If any of the metal parts of the hood latch assembly dry out or corrode, it can “sag” and not move freely as intended. In the video below, insufficient lubrication causes the recoil spring to not return to its normal position, causing the bolt to shift out of position.
5) Broken or Rusty Spring
The latch spring keeps the latch closed at all times, only pushing the spring open when you pull the hood release cable. But if the spring fails due to excessive rust or damage, the spring will not push in and the latch will not close. This means that when you pull the release cable to open the hood, the hood will open, but it will not be pulled back by the spring.
6) Accidental Damage
If the front of your car has recently been in an accident, you may have trouble keeping the hood closed. The problem is that after an accident, anything in your car can shift or break. Maybe parts of the hood or engine bay aren’t in the right place.
Maybe the force of the accident broke a part of the hood latch. Either way, your hood won’t work properly anymore. We recommend repairing all damage caused by the accident first. This should give you an idea of why your hood won’t close properly.
What to do if your hood won’t close completely?
If your hood won’t close completely, don’t drive your car. The problem is that the hood will open while you’re driving. This can cause damage to various components of your vehicle as well as loss of visibility. This is very dangerous for you and all other road users. So, if your bonnet won’t close all the way, you should never drive it.
You can take the time to diagnose the problem before you leave and try to fix it yourself, but if the problem cannot be fixed, you will need to have your car towed to a repair shop or have a professional mechanic come to your car to fix it, diagnose and fix it.
Can you drive with a broken bonnet lock? It depends on how broken the bonnet lock is. If the bonnet lock won’t keep the bonnet closed, you should never drive your vehicle that way. However, if you can’t open the hood, you can take your car to a local repair shop to have them take a look.
However, even if you can’t open the hood at all, don’t drive your car too far. An emergency may require you to get under the hood, and a broken hood latch makes that impossible.
What should I do if my hood comes off while I’m driving?
Despite your best efforts, sometimes crazy things can happen while you’re driving. If your hood pops off while you’re driving, there are a few things you should do.
First, turn on your hazard lights, brake immediately, and get off the road as quickly as possible. If the hood is actually covering your windshield, you may have to crouch down a little to see the road through the small gap at the bottom of the windshield.
Once you’ve stopped and are in a safe place, get out and examine the hood to find out what happened. If you can get the hood to close all the way and latch it into place, there’s no reason you can’t keep driving (even if it’s slowly driving back to the nearest repair shop or home). However, if the hood won’t close when your car is on the side of the road, you’ll need to call a tow truck to get your car off the road.
