Well I just went to pickup my car yesterday in Charleston, SC (damn army). Anyway, the car had been shipped from Alaska to South Carolina so they ask you to walk around to ensure there is no damage to the vehicle. After throughly inspecting the car inside and out they asked if everything was in order and I said that I just wanted to look under the hood. Well I reach down to pop the hood and I'm pulling and pulling with no luck. After about a minute of this I give one final tug and bam the GD lever breaks right off the cable.
Now, in the denfense of the shippers. I always from the day I bought the car thought that the hood was unusually difficult to pop. I'm not saying I couldn't figure it out I just really had to wrench the little handle under the dash. Well thats it.

Jesse

P.S. I am now living in the Mooresville, NC area so if anyone know a good performance shop around here let me know.

 

did they pay for it?

 

This just happend yesterday. I'll be going to a local mitsu dealer here in NC to try and get this fixed. I spoke with them and they said to come down so they could help me out.

Jesse

 

Sounds like a warranty issue to me. They can void the motor over a pipe, and void the suspension over some springs. But how they heck are they going to deny warranty work on a broken hood latch lever, as long as the car hasn't been in any sort of accident??

They'll get it fixed...or you'll just never see your motor...

 

Mine is very tight also, feels like it could break anytime now.

 

when I first bought mine, it was tight, but now that I have opened the hood 5390 times, its not that difficult anymore.

 

Anyone have any ideas on how to pop the hood without the use of the handle? I'm about to make another long road trip and would like to be able to open the hood to check the oil and such. Any help would be awesome! I'm an supposed to leave on monday and will not be able to have the car repaired until I return.

Thanks,
Jesse

 

Is the line still sticking out of where the lever broke off, under the dash? You can usually pull the cable with a pair of needle nosed pliers or even better, vise-grip pliers, to make sure they don't slip off and scratch something else.


I've had luck in the past with old beaters, lol at the thought of doing it to a new evo but hey, if it happened to me I'd want to open the hood too.


It is probably so hard to pop the hood, and your latch probably broke, because the moldings and tolerances are tighter on a new vehicle, and the hood is probably fighting the initial release of the latch. That or the cable itself was to stiff. It might be helpful to have someone apply downward pressure on the hood while you try to pop it, and that may help alleviate the resistance. Once you open it up I would lube the latch and the cable with a lube like "cable life", it really cuts down on the friction of the cable.

Gl