maxmethods

Ok...i have an annoying problem here. My hood will not close all the way. I am pretty sure it that there is nothing preventing it or blocking it from closing. the big problem is that i can see a gap between my hood and my bumper and it looks disgusting!!

Now, I do have a clue to what could be the problem. I let one of my friends attempt to change my breakpads not too long ago. And he normally works on honda's and stuff, so apparently he tried to jackup the car from the front instead of the side spots.

so i am begining to think that when he did that, he could have pushed up the radiator support or something that is part of the frame that holds the hood latch.

If thats the case....does anyone know who i can fix this problem? any suggestions would help, cause i am not even sure what the real problem is.
Thanks.

maxmethods

anybody ever had anything similar to this? or has anyone ever had a larger then usual gap between theyre hood and bumper?

gobears

Are you the original owner?

I hate to tell you that PO may have never tell you about the previous accident before.

maxmethods

im not the original owner...but this happened recently. It used to shut fine with no problems. So im pretty sure whatever happened happened while i was the owner...unfortunately =(

maxmethods

bumpin cause my hood still has a gap. lol. Nobody had this problem before?

slickgt1

iTrader: (1)

i don't think this is a normal thing to happen, but maybe you friend did bend something up, and messed up your whip. Did you look at the bottom of the hood and check if anything is touching, leaving transfer marks. Also, look under the car and see if anything is bent there. I don't think you should be jacking up our lex from the front. On most Honda coupes and sedans you can jack up from the front. I have seen it a million times with no ill efects. Lexus, i would not even try it, our cars weigh a lot, and most of that weight is toward the front.

DCMango

Any tools left within the engine bay?

maxmethods

yea i agree. im almost certain that when he did that, it pushed sumthing up and now i have this problem. Im trying to avoid going to lexus or a bodyshop to fix this...the gap isnt even that big, but it bothers the hell out of me.

im trynna figure out a way to lower the hood latch, cause ultimately thats the main problem. its too high.

slickgt1

iTrader: (1)

you know, bending the support like that is just not a safe thing. You might want to get a good shops opinion. Something like this could be more messed up than you think. I mean if he did enough damage to cause a gap in the hood, everything else down there might be really bent out of shape. This is not even considering that it could be your entire front frame not being able to support the weight and bending. Did you check the door/fender gap on the bottom by both your front doors. See if it got bigger than everywhere else.

maxmethods

i just went out and checked it. the door/fender gap looks normal. i wish i had my camera so i could take pics to show. i havent noticed anything else wrong other then the hood gap. any suggestions or ideas or quickfixes?

slickgt1

iTrader: (1)

did you check the bottom for any bending? Any scraping to the bottom of the hood?

cliffud

iTrader: (3)

check to see if the hood struts are fully able to lay in their proper place.

Ajnabi

I am going to guess its your latch wire that runs from the inside of the car to the hood latch outside. I have had the same issue with mine. You need to open up the latch from the front and see if you can pull the wire and try to spray it with wd-40 and see if that helps.

Lexbox

I would definitely say before playing with the latch, check the rubber "bumpstops" on each side in case one is way higher than the other. It probably wasnt played with but they might allow some adjustment for you.

JLAM

iTrader: (1)

Does the hood latch and lock? Or does it just latch? I had a similiar problem. My hood would latch together but did not lock...I push down to close the hood but would just pop back up because it was not locking. There was too much play in my hood latch cable...maybe being stretched out from over the years. I just got some zip ties to hold the cable tighter in place.