Can't open your hood. . . Well here you go!

[GLoBaLReBeL]

This is a rough guide to help anyone who is unable to open their hood on a MK7 Golf GTI/R. If you forgot to reconnect the hood latch cable, or it broke or for WHATEVER reason, this should get it back open for you. However. . . it isn't fun.

Things to know...
1. You WILL have to buy a replacement grill if you are unable to get enough clearance between the emblem hump and the hood cutout.
2. You WILL curse yourself for making such a stupid mistake after you have opened your hood.
3. You need to be CAREFUL when doing this, as you can easily pierce the AC condenser with the tools required.

Tools you will need...
1. 10mm box end wrench at least 6 inches long. The longer the better folks
2. Dremel with a plastic cutting wheel
3. Plstic/Metal hand held hacksaw. Something like this.. (It needs to be as this as possible, since we are working in a tight spot)
4. Painters tape and towels to cover your hood and bumper from buring hot pieces of plastic during your dremmeling.
5. A telescoping magnet to grab the bolts after they fall down and into the bottom of the front bumper. Seriously worth grabbing one from Harbor Freight for like $3!

Ok . . Lets do this!

What we are trying to do is get access to the 2 10mm bolts that hold the hood latch to the hood itself.

Hood Latch

First try and see if you can do this with a long 10mm wrench and pushing up on the hood itself to get access to the latch. You will do this by going through the gap between the top of the VW emblem and the hood notch above it. If you are unable to do this, please continue on and be ready to start cutting.

Cutting her up . .

Ok so you can't get to the hood latch bolt with an extended wrench. :-( Well, no fear, because its time to start cutting away and releasing some of that frustration on your grill. BE CAREFUL when doing this steps as you can damage your paint and the AC condenser if you are not paying attention.

Steps...

1. Tape off from the bottom of the hood up about 12 inches (or more) with towels and painters tape. This is to keep those burning hot plastic bits flying off your dremel OFF YOUR PAINT. Do the same for the front of your bumper.

2. Now pop off your VW emblem. Simply get a flat head screw driver (the thinner the better) and put it between the chrome plastic and the grill face and pop it off. You should start at the bottom right or left, pop it a little, then goto the opposite side and pop it again. Work your way up and soon it will just come right off. SAVE BOTH THE CHROME PIECE AND THE BLACK PIECE BEHIND IT!!

2. You will want to cut about a 6" wide hole/square out of the top of your grill. To do this, I cut out the center of the grill using the dremel. I cut out a box that took up most of the center and then did small circular cuts to make a circular hole. You do not need to do this yourself, but I did it to see if anything could be done to the hood latch mechanism to make this easier . . . NOPE. Then, use your hand hacksaw to cut further back to remove those humps in the back to get more access to the bolts. BE CAREFUL NOT TO PUNCTURE YOUR AC CONDENSER!

Here's what my grill looked like after I cut it up. You want to get enough room up top to reach the hoot latch bolts with your wrench.

Here's what it looked like with the hood still down, but looking at the hood latch bolts you need to reach . . .

Here's a better picture showing the bolts you need to get too...

Now here's what I would recommend you cut out to make this process easier on your hands and your sanity. You don't need to cut it ALL out, but the red rectangle is what I would cut out, and the red circle is just showing what I did cut out. Basically, you need that bump up top to come out and the plastic all leading back to the latch to come out as well. You can't salvage the grill after you cut out this stuff, so go crazy if you want BUT BE MINDFUL of your paint and the AC condenser behind the grill!!

Once you cut out that fun stuff you should see something like this . . .

At this point its time to get out a flashlight and see if you can reach BOTH bolts before continuing. Do not just start up on one bolt, and then the other. You NEED to be able to reach both, so check first and then start. If you can't get to them both, then cut some more out and check again. (This is why I would have cut out more than I did on mine. I had a hard time and it was getting late.)

Now I had to use the open end of the wrench and do short little turns for about 20 minutes on each side. If you cut out more than I did, you should be able to do much more and take much less time.

Once that is done, your hood will open right up Scream for joy and fix whatever was broken that wasn't letting you open your hood in the first place. Install replacement grill and have a drink of your choice!

Side Note: I installed a grill from PartsGeek that was about $60. It fit right in and looked fine. The honeycomb on this grill is not as shiny as the OEM grill, and the red line does not line up with the headlights, but other then that it fit perfectly. I blacked out my emblem and red line/chrome strip anyway, so you don't even notice. But, if you are anal about that stuff, go ahead and pay 199 for a new grill or take this chance to buy an aftermarket grill that fits your needs.

I hope this helped those of you that made the mistake I did or who just couldn't get their hood open for whatever reason. I have read soo much on here that I am happy to have been able to support the forum and give back!

Happy Wrenching!!

 

[desol8tor]

Yikes, GREAT guide, if not a little distressing on how involved this is.

A few months ago I messed up the cable connector housing that allows the hood release latch to work... I was fortunate enough to take it to a different dealer than where I purchased the car, got it done for free with a promise to give a perfect NPS survey review and scheduling of the upcoming service

I believe they fix it by removing bumper/paneling to get at the broken cable directly.

 

[GLoBaLReBeL]

I was told by my dealer that it is not possible to do and to contact a auto-body shop. Auto-body shop wanted to charge me 120 - XXX to do the work, and they hadn't done it before so chances are more than 180. That also doesn't mean they can do it without damaging the grill like I had to.

Did your car have the Lighting Package upgrade? Cause mine does, and there's no way you can get a hand in there past the headlight to get at the hood latch cable. Maybe with the standard one (which I can add to the OP if needed)

Also, you can't take the front bumper off without opening the hood to take the grill off since the grill connects to the front bumper and also is screwed into the top of the radiator support.

 

[desol8tor]

Hrm, I actually have Ed's replica's installed (the whole reason why I got into this mess was trying to figure out some lighting error codes, so all related), but the dealer didn't know about this beforehand. The info on the car would have indicated I did not have LP so maybe that was the difference?

I'd be curious to see pictures of the LP housing vs standard (or Ed's/Helix)

Dealer did not ruin my grill either.

 

[LukeGTI1]

It’s crazy how there’s no other way to do this. The plastic connector to the upper latch cable just broke on me and this is pretty much the only option. Going in through the bottom is not an option, It’s just way too tight. I tried going through the wheel well and actually found the part of the cable that broke but there’s also no way of getting to it with tools to fix because of the light housing. Half the screws to the housing are accessible but two other screws are on the other side of the actual frame of the car and you can’t get to them. I was able to get my phone up in there to take a picture of it. Talked to the dealer and found out that they’d also be cutting the grill to get to it and then called the warranty company and they said that they won’t be covering this. All they’d cover is the $30 latch cable but not grill and labor. So all in all just ordered a new badge less grill and cable and I’ll be cutting it up myself when it all gets in.

 

[LukeGTI1]

Just chopped up my car today to fix the latch cable. Took about 2hours and only cost $120. Bought the grill from urotuning for $85 and the cable cost me $35 from the dealer.

 

[GhostGTI2]

My hood release broke while I was removing the driver side kick panel to run some wires. This thread saved me hours of searching for “alternate” methods of getting the hood open (there are not alternate methods, btw). Thanks for the write-up.
I ordered an Ebay grill and the OEM cable part.
Once I got the hood open, I realized the cable is completely fine. The part that broke on mine was the plastic housing that connects the two halves. One side of the tiny plastic pieces that holds the sliding part in place broke. So when I pulled the cable, it pushed the plastic housing out just enough to not engage the other end of the cable.
Rather that replace the cable with the same weak plastic housing, I just safety wired the housing shut. Now there is now way it hell that it will flex when I pull the release.

 

[Tooly]

This way of doing it is going to suck for mk7.5 owners since the driver assistance aids have been moved into the emblem. A lot more expensive then just replacing the grill I'd wager.

 

[George Ab]

Nice DIY. Been there done that. This was my experience and write up on how to. https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showpost.php?p=477400&postcount=5

 

[ejones725]

Hey so i am going to tackle this soon. Is it too tight to get a socket wrench in there?

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[Rmudder]

I just bought a used 2017 MK7 Golf R. On the second day of ownership my hood latch disengaged. Thankfully the dealer offered a full warranty coverage on this repair.

They Had to cut the front grill out, replace the latch assembly and cable assembly running behind the headlight. I got lucky it happened on day 2 therefore not costing me anything but time.

Make sure you keep your latches lubricated as the mechanic noted the hood latch was dry and failed due to seize.

***Update on Final Cost***
Work done by local European Car Specialist Shop...
Parts Replaced Under Warranty from Used Dealer
- Front Grill w/ Emblem
- Hood Release Lever (by pedals)
- Hood Release Cable Assembly
- Hood Latch Assembly

Total Bill: $1,600 (not out of my pocket thankfully)

This is a costly repair if they can’t get in without cutting the front grill. The MK7.5 will be more expensive if they have ACC integrated into the VW emblem.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ReadTheBook]

So interestingly, this happened to me the day after my last oil change a few months ago. I just couldn't pull the lever in the car to open the hood. I drove around for about an hour running some errands, going in and out of a few driveways and such and then it was suddenly fine. I couldn't find anything wrong with it and I've had it opened and shut many times since.

 

[agreen182]

Wanted to share my experience in the hopes it will help some unfortunate souls: I was able to fix my hood with 0 destruction.

Pop off the driver’s side front wheel, remove a few of the screws from the wheel lining and pull it back.

You should see the back of the headlamp, remove the rubber cover to give yourself a little wiggle room. Fish your hand up behind the headlight and feel for the hood release cable under the hood. I have relatively large hands and it’s a squeeze, but certainly possible.

The cable and the release mechanism are reachable (assuming you didn’t have some kind of catastrophic failure, in my case all that happened was the black cover popped open and the cable popped out).

With some finagling I was able to get the cable back into the mechanism and hold it there. Then all you need is someone to pull the hood release handle while you hold the cable in place.

I really couldn’t believe how easy it was. I then re-seated the cable, closed the cover, and zip-tied it in place.Works like a charm now.

Again, if your cable or release mechanism are broken, this method may not work. But if you have the common problem of the cable just popping out of the mechanism, this will fix it in like 20 minutes with no destruction and no cost.

 

[AWD4416]

Just had this issue but it was my fault that the plastic junction on the headlight broke. Was able to fix it undoing the 10mm bolts. Took a lot of patience to slowly undo the bolts. Ironically found a how to on the vortex that described mostly what I did, including the fix.

https://forums.vwvortex.com/showthr...hen-the-release-lever-mechanism-does-not-work

Hope it saves someone some money. I only spent $20 on two 10mm wrench and some tape around the paint. Used a wire hanger as material to fix the broken plastic.

 

[codypka]

Someone posted on the MK7 facebook group that they were able to open the hood just enough to slide a couple of air bags in there. When he filled them with air it gave him enough clearance to get a screwdriver in there and undo the latch without having to destroy anything.