Hi Everyone. I am in a similar situation right now where my hood release lever works intermittently. Sometimes it'll open with one pull. Sometimes it takes two pulls to open. Sometimes it wont open at all. With the hood open and my wife pulling the hood release lever, i can hear and see that the ball is moving every time at the latch area. The hood release junction box is also closed and zip tied. The issue is that it will not release every time. It's probably like for every 5 times it releases the hood, it gets stuck for a while. And then, if I have my wife pull the lever while I pull on the hood, I can get it to release. Could it be that the upper part of the release cable has lost its tension perhaps and not moving the latch far enough to open?
Any thoughts?
Also, any thoughts on how much it costs for labor to replace the front and rear hood release cable at a shop?
I was able to find the part numbers : 5G1823531C - Front Hood Cable Release / 5G0823535B - Rear Hood Cable Release for a 2017 Mk7 GTI.
That being said, once I realized that the hood release lever was working intermittently I removed the grill in case the hood gets permanently stuck so I can reach the 10mm screws in the hatch lever to release so I wouldn't have to drill the grill in order to open it.
Thanks in advance.
FYI - IWMTom - I looked at your picture to see if the steel cable was not in the channel but my 2017 GTI doesn't seem to have the same release as yours. Its a metal ball that comes from a steel cable.