Odd hood latch issue

**Intrepidman** · 04-13-2009, 12:07 PM

This strikes me as a very odd problem so I thought I would post about it, just for curiousity sake.

When I parked my car last fall the hood and latch worked perfectly. But now that I have brought the car back out for spring it seems that the hood release (the under hood handle) actually catches the body colored plastic panel that runs along the front of the car (WS6) The handle actually sticks under this panel (by about an 1/8th of an inch) and gets stuck there...right under the lower "nostril". To open my hood I have to reach in with a finger and coax it out while trying not to put too much pressure on the plastic panel.

I'm either going to have to unbolt the latch, oval the bolt holes and move it back slightly, or file down the latch handle and hit it with some black paint agian.

But its very odd how it could move like that somehow while the car was in storage...I don't even have a real theory. (maybe something to do with expansion/conraction of metals in the car as it hit -25 this winter?)

**dklowrider** · 04-13-2009, 12:45 PM

probably was in the way when the mice moved in and they bent it out of the way.

**Orcus79** · 04-13-2009, 03:41 PM

That almost sounds like it was forced below that lip, is there any thing else the car is stored with? Another vehicle? I store my 02WS6 in unheated storage and so far never had that happen.

**chuckie669** · 04-13-2009, 03:43 PM

I had something similar where it caught on the lip and filed it back and repainted it.

**Intrepidman** · 04-14-2009, 09:46 AM

Originally Posted by dklowrider

probably was in the way when the mice moved in and they bent it out of the way.

LMAO...I thought I saw little fingerprints on it

They must have needed a place to hide from the neighbour's 8 cats.

**Intrepidman** · 04-14-2009, 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by Orcus79

That almost sounds like it was forced below that lip, is there any thing else the car is stored with? Another vehicle? I store my 02WS6 in unheated storage and so far never had that happen.

I can't say that it would have been forced by anything....ummm, perhaps the weight of the snow on the car cover, but that shouldn't have amounted to much. I kept it pretty much swept off.
And it actually goes back below every time I close the hood, so its not like it was forced down there as a one time event.