BMW 3 Series E46 Hood Won't Open - Broken Hood Release Cable & Latch

Opening the hood latch should not require much force when pulling the lever from inside the car.

Last few months it was noticed that the force became harder. Unfortunately the enclosed housing near the air intake box broke, not allowing the hood release cable to pull the hood latch to open and unlock the hood.

That being said, as frustrating as it is, there's a way to get yourself out of this situation.

Please take care to remove driver's side kidney grill so as to not break it. Worst case a new kidney grill is better than a damaged hood.

Once the grill is removed you will have access to the latch pin on the hood side. Use a T30 torx to remove the 2 fasteners.

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VIM Tools VHC77.

With this, it makes easy work of removing the the 2 fasteners. From there you should be able to open your hood. If not repeat the same thing on the passenger side.

Replace hood release cables. There are 3 of them.
-Passenger to Driver side cable connecting both latches
-Driver side to housing near airbox
-Cable from airbox housing to inner foot well

Buy genuine BMW parts, the aftermarket parts are not guaranteed to work well.