Hood will not close

[E363series]

My hood will not close all of the way. The only reason it will stay closed is because of the safety latch. When I pull the hood release the pin in the hole moves but does not return to where it should. Any ideas would be appreciated.

[mgthompson]

My '93 325iS does the same thing. If you look in hole in the latches in front of the radiator you should see a crescent shaped piece sticking into the hole at the right. This is the part that holds the hood down and is pulled back by the hood release. Mine is sticky and will not go out to the normal position when I let go of the hood release. I have put LOTS of WD40 and grease on everything that I could get to with no improvement. If I carefully bang on the latch with a hammer the latch part will go out to the normal position and the hood will latch.

[BACKINBLACK325I]

your cable that connects to the driverside latch is more than likely broken..you can oil the crap out of it like what has been said but more than likely you need latches,,and a cable..or removed and thoroughly cleaned..and oiled..its a big job..

[E363series]

I sprayed WD-40 and worked the hood and got one of the latches to catch. I will try cleaning the latch. If that doesn't work I will have to replace them or replace the cable. Thanks.

[eLegg]

Before I bought my car the dealer fixed that hood cable and it took them 6 hours... they had to pull apart the whole front end of the car to replace a 2 foot cable...

Have you tried to realign the things on the hood that latch onto the car to hold it down? Sometimes those get mis aligned.

Good luck