Time to check the oil level but that's kinda hard if you can't open the hood...

The latch under the dashboard does not move enough to release the hood. I can thank a well intentioned idiot for breaking the plastic lever to prove this. Pulling on the newly revealed cable with pliers got me nowhere. I lubed the hell out of the latch by spraying through the grill - but that didn't work. So I dropped the belly pan and tried the secondary release; it is locked up too. From this I surmise that the actual latch is well and truly frozen.

Anybody ever had any success replacing the hood latch with the hood still closed?

 

OK, so I'm the only one.

For the record, it would not have been too hard a job to do. The latch is about $45 and the cable is about $75. There are three bolts holding the latch onto the front cross brace and they are not too hard to get to from under the car. The dealer lists this as a 1.5 hour job out the door.

If, like me, your interior trim piece is broken in realizing that your hood doesn't work you can add about $150-$200 to the bill.

 

How did the plastic lever inside your car break?

 

man that sucks! why cant u just unfreeze it?

 

The latch wasn't gonna move but that did not deter my "helper" from tugging really, really hard. For $200 I was perfectly content to fabricate a new hood release lever.

 

Like you, I woulda thought that soaking it for a couple of days in penetrating oil would do the trick. Turns out it didn't work. I even tried the slim-jim approach reaching through the grill, but to no avail.

 

park in a heated space for a few hours... goto a mall?

 

It lives in a nice, warm garage which is most likely the problem.

In Pittsburgh they are not shy about using salt 7 days a week. Leaving the car in a nice warm spot each night speeds corrosion and probably lead to the lock-up.