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ok, my battery is dead, well I'll just pop the hood and charge it. Oh yeah, I can't pop the hood because my battery is dead. What genius engineer figured this was a good idea? How about just a pull cable like most other vehicles? Ridiculous
ok, my battery is dead, well I'll just pop the hood and charge it. Oh yeah, I can't pop the hood because my battery is dead. What genius engineer figured this was a good idea? How about just a pull cable like most other vehicles? Ridiculous
Back feed the battery through the cigarette lighter. Seen this, never had it happen to me.
If you think that sucks; the hood cable on a '74-89 911 takes the cake. You have to remove the bumper and drill an access hole.
Indeed ...dumb!! And it's getting worse with all the electrical do-dads coming stock on cars. On wife's MB, if the car has a dead battery, you can't get the car out of Park! You have to either jump it to start it to shift out of P, or if the car otherwise is dead you have to apply 12v to get the car into neutral just to push it. And don't get me started on power trunk lids! Seems like the population really is getting lazier as evidenced by each new year of "features" we get. Geee, can't wait for that autonomous-driving "car" if you can still call it that.
Unfortunately, we'll all have to get used to it. More and more manufacturers are ditching cable and handle assemblies for a wire, button and a servo motor. Makes everything lighter and increases parts commonality.
If you read the manual its a pretty simple procedure to jump the fuse panel and pop the trunk.
It's not really simple because it requires a lot of juice. A battery charger usually won't do it. I keep a spare battery and jumper cables for when this happens. And it happens a lot.
Not only is this a major design flaw, the motor that opens the front hood wants lots of amperage to cycle which makes it even worse.
Here is a simple fix made for a friend's SC. I make my own control cables for motorcycle restorations and had all the parts. The crimps are aluminum fence wire type, purchased from Lowes.
I've seen other attachments to the hood latch but as the screw is pretty stable I felt the wire put less stress on it than a metal tab. A soldered barrel or ball end was in the works but this is works with fewer parts.
The cable goes through a grommet in the drivers side fender behind the headlight for the windshield washer line. I've also seen these hidden in the horn grill of a LWB car with a solid rod attachment.
The same thing can be performed for the engine lid latch too. The black section on the pull is heavy wall/sealed type heat shrink tubing. The plastic cable clamp (attached to the fog light bracket) will eventually be switched to a metal insulated cable clamp.
01-05-2018, 06:43 PM
Who's idea was this?
