How to Fix Your Acura Hood When it Won’t Stay Open: Easy DIY Guide
Are you having trouble keeping your Acura Hood up or open while you are working? In most cases, the problem is the hood struts (also known as hood lift support). Don’t take your car to the dealership; replace them yourself from the comfort of your own garage! It will take less than 20 minutes and is a very easy project that anyone can do, even beginners!
Symptoms
Your hood struts may be the culprit if you are experiencing any of the following problems.
🔧 Stop paying the dealer for every warning light
Get dealer level diagnostics at home with the YOUCANIC Full System Scanner.
- ✔ Works with all makes and models, including most luxury brands
- ✔ Topology map view shows all vehicle modules on one screen for faster diagnostics
- ✔ Bi directional controls to test fans, pumps, actuators and more so you do not have to guess
- ✔ Special resets and calibrations such as ABS bleed, EPB service, battery registration and more
- ✔ Free lifetime updates with no recurring fees
- It won’t stay up or open.
- It stays open for a few seconds, then shuts.
- It closes automatically
What you will need
- ACURA Hood Lift Support
- Flathead Screwdriver
- A friend to help you hold the hood up while you work.
Procedure
These steps will guide you through replacing the hood struts on your Acura quickly and easily. This fix should only take about 30 minutes. Be careful not to injure yourself!
Open the hood of your ACURA by pulling the hood latch. In most Audis, this latch is located under the dashboard on the driver’s side. If you aren’t sure where it is, look it up online or check your user’s manual.
Open the hood by pulling the latch under the hood, and have someone hold it open while you work. Next, find the hood struts that need to be replaced. 
In the image above, the hood support location is shown on an Acura TLX.
Below, you can see the location of the hood support on an Acura TL, which has two.
Locate the clip that locks the support locks to the ball joint. Here is the clip that you need to remove. 
There is also another clip on the other end of the strut. 
Use a flat screwdriver to pry out the clip that locks the strut in place. 
Follow the same procedure for the other end. 
Install the new hood support in reverse order. 
Repeat this procedure for the other side. Here is a video that shows you how to change the lift support.
You can use this guide to replace the hood lift support on ACURA vehicles such as the MDX, NSX, RDX, RL, RLX, RSX, SLX, TL, TLX, ZDX, CDX, CL, VSX, EL, ILX, Integra, and Legend.
We hope you found this guide helpful. Check out our other troubleshooting and repair guides for more help on your Acura vehicle.
Great Article. It is true that 99% of the times, the issue will be the hood struts. They physically keep the whole hood in place. I’d want to say 100% but we cannot leave out other issues that might happen, e.g. simply a broken nut bolt etc.
For more advanced cars using a hydraulic system, the fault can be due to a number of other reasons.
A more serious problem is when the hood stays closed and won’t open again. That is a more complicated issue, although very rare.