Hello,
So the battery to my wife?s Hyundai Santa Fe (2002) went dead (my daughter probably played w/ the interior light, and left it on). I was at work, so she called AAA to jump the car.
AAA guy comes, and can not open the Hood. You pull on the lever, and nothing happens. He offered to tow the car to a shop, but I want to see if I can fix it first.
Now the question is?. How do you open the hood to see if the cable is broken, or something else is wrong?
Thanks,
Rich
I am not sure if you can do it with this car, but you might be able to lie on the ground under the front of the car and reach up to push or pull the part that is supposed to move when you pull the lever.
Find a website which sells parts for this make and model. I found one for my Honda for this type of problem, and it give detailed drawings and part numbers for whatever they sell . . . the one I found just so happened to be "majestichonda.com. Click around until you get to body parts and get a diagram of your hood and latching mechanism. You should be able to tell from the picture how it operates and then make a hook of some sort from heavy wire (clothes hanger works well). And then lay on the ground and fish it up there. After you get it to open you may want to “rig” a safety wire which will hang down far enough so you can reach up and pull it, if this happens again. Sound like I’ve been there? Yep. Worked like a charm, too. Good luck! Rocketman
Try having somebody pull and hold the lever while you lift up on the hood.
Sometimes the hood is frozen down and might pop up if it is pulled a bit. Sometimes pushing down on the hood while someone else pulls the release, then let go of the hood and see if it opens. Or it could be the cable has come loose. I had that happen on a 300ZX. Big mess. The only solution I came up with was to go to a dealer and find one in the shop so I could look at the arrangement to see how to get in there. The only other suggestion I have is ask a good body shop mechanic how they would open it.