| Bonnet difficult to open (but release cable not broken)? | |
When looking for my L322, every vehicle that I looked at had a pretty woeful bonnet release lever in terms of feedback. On the car that I bought the cable was actually replaced as part of the sale, but the near side catch still didn't want to release each time I needed to get under the bonnet and it's been a real PITA.... Until yesterday.
Whilst replacing the air conditioning condenser (an easy job thanks to an excellent how to on here), and replacing the sidelight bolts with stainless parts for a pain-free future, I had cause to remove the front closing panel and it immediately became obvious as to why I couldn't get the bonnet to open easily.
The outer cable between the two latches had rusted through at both ends (see pictures below), so each time the cable was meant to pull the second bonnet catch, it was just compressing the corroded outers and not working very well, if at all, against the near side catch.
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This must be a fairly common problem as the local LR dealer had this cable in stock (part number on last picture) and it was only £7 or so plus the VAT. If I'd known in advance I would have ordered from our forum sponsors, but it being in stock locally made it a no brainer to defect on this occasion.
I also took the opportunity to adjust the two rubber bump stops on the bonnet to create a slight 'pop' when the bonnet is released and now my bonnet opening struggles are over.
If your L322 is also reluctant to let you under the bonnet, this could be why.
HTH 2011 Range Rover Vogue SE 4.4 TDv8
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