bauderline

Folks,

I have an E60 and I cannot open the bonnet at the moment, the passenger side latch releases but not the drivers side, so I would assume that the cable connection to the interior lever is fine and still attached. From looking at various posts on the the internet forums I know the pull cable splits into two at a junction box somewhere over the front drivers side wheel well, I am guessing there is either a failure here or at the actual drivers side latch itself.

I took the drivers side wheel off last night and had a poke around but couldn't fine the junction box, however I didn't remove the wheel well liner which I think you might need to do to find the junction box.

I have a Bentley manual and access to the TIS stuff but they are all devoid of information on what to do in this scenario.

I would like to avoid shelling out a complete fortune to a dealer to get this fixed so if anyone has any experience in this area I would really appreciate some suggestions. I don't mind tackling a difficult time consuming job however I hate "guesswork" when it comes to these things as you can often end up doing a lot of work for no return or worse still causing damage.

I also carefully took off one of the front Kidney grills, zip access to bonnet latch from there...

Any thoughts ?

Best regards, Peter.

Wolrab

You won't be able to get to the cable splitter. It's on top of the fender. Too much stuff in the way. I hope there's a way to pop it open from below at the latch, but right now I can't see how. I'll have a closer look tonight and let you know if I think of anything.

twh

This picture might help:
Engine hood/mounting parts BMW 5' E60, 530xi (N52)

sanjsanj

long shot, but try this: unscrew the lever mechanism, and use some pliers to pull the wire that the lever would pull on. Obviously the lever only pulls up to a certain amount, with pliers you might be able to pull more, which much just undo the other latch.

Wolrab

bauderline, please let us know the solution, when you find one. It could happen to any of the rest of us.

LessIsMore

I'm in for the fix ....

bauderline

Yeah, I read a few people tried that and it worked, guess its worth a shot so I will give it a lash over the weekend and let you know...

Supposedly the ONLY other way to release that latch is apparently to undo the bottom bolts on the front bumper and pull it forward and up enough to be able to get at the mechanism... I really don't like the thoughts of that and I don't know for sure if it will work....

B767capt

I'll be curious to find out how you solve this. I went and checked all my cables and put liquid graphite in them called dry slide. Also pulled each lock out and cleaned and put lithium grease on the pivot points. I'm not going to sugar coat it as I looked all around and could not see a way to get to them even from below. I thought of attaching a second cable to each lock and zip tie them down below out of the way. I never thought of this happening until I read this and man is it ugly. I wonder what the dealers do when someone brings this problem in? I could see living up north in a salt environment could cause this stuff to corrode.

B767capt

Any updates?

bauderline

It's booked into the dealers Thursday 1st November, if they want paid they will have to give a fairly detailed account of what was done to get the hood open.

I WILL post feedback here so keep an eye on the thread. I really do suspect the only at this is opening the front bumper from below.

I am going to try pulling the cable in the footwell some evening in the meantime, I am very doubtful about that but will give it a try...

P.