Hood won't open!

[MrBimmer]

Pulling on the hood release lever does nothing. Taking apart the interior to pull on the cable with a pair of pliers garnered no results. Can anyone advise me on how to access the hood under these conditions?

[fourtailpipes]

pop out the kidney grilles and you should be able to move the hood latch mechanism from below with a long flathead screwdriver. i dont remember exactly where i pried, but looking at how the cable attached and pulled the mechanism, i was able to figure it out in a few minutes.

[Skers 05]

I would take off the kick panel in the driver footwell. Once off, you can remove the plastic lever to release the Hood latch. Next, try pulling on the hood release cable with pliers. Sometimes the cables gets stuck and needs extra effort to open the hood. Once you get the hood open, follow the cable, somewhere along it, there is a "door" you can open and lube the cable. Spray some WD-40 in there.

Hopefully this will help you. I had similar issues in the past.

Cheers!

[drunkenup]

On the non-M the cable to the latch can be pulled with the passenger side kidney removed. Once open you'll have to reset the latch to close it again. I can't imagine the 1M is different here.

Problem is likely the box where the front and rear cables meet, and the tabs inside have given way. It can be opened to confirm this.