Mercedes-Benz Hood Open Warning
Is your Mercedes-Benz displaying an open hood warning? Learn how to troubleshoot the open hood problem by following the procedures below. This guide provides instructions on troubleshooting a Mercedes-Benz that displays an open hood warning even when the hood is closed.
Symptoms
- Hood open warning on the instrument cluster
- The hood is closed, but got a warning message.
- The hood open warning, but the hood is closed.
Possible Causes
The Hood is not fully closed
The hood may not have appropriately latched. Pull over immediately and check if the hood is closed on both sides. Look at the hood on both sides. Quite often, the hood latches on one side but not the other. Most Mercedes-Benz has two latches. One above each headlight. In many cases, one side latches while the other does not.
If your Mercedes-Benz is not properly closed, open the hood and close it again. If needed, press down with the palm of your hand on the hood on the side so it does not latch correctly.
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Damaged hood latch
Modern vehicles, including Mercedes-Benz cars, are equipped with additional safety features to alert the driver regarding the status of the hood. The hood should be fully closed when driving to prevent the hood from opening when the vehicle runs at considerable speed.
Sometimes, the lamp will illuminate or warn even though the hood is shut. When this happens, you should remove the hood latches. Mercedes-Benz vehicles have two micro-switches, typically right above each headlight. These switches detect if the hood is open or closed. The switch may wear out, or the wire can disconnect.
If the latch and microswitch bracket check out fine, it is more likely that the microswitch has a loose internal contact; you can verify it using a digital multimeter.
If your car has dual sensors (microswitch), follow the instructions above for both sides. If one of these sensors is bad, you will have a hood open warning light so both sensors show work.
Does hood open warning make Mercedes-Benz wipers stop working?
Yes.
In many Mercedes-Benz, the wipers are programmed not to operate when the hood is open. When the hood open warning comes up, the wipers will not work, even if the hood is closed, because the vehicle does not recognize the hood is closed.
Troubleshooting Hood Warning Message
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Additional Resources
- The hood open warning, but the hood is closed. – Youtube.com
- Hood Open Warning – Except it isn’t – MBWorld.org
We hope you find the Mercedes-Benz Hood Open Warning guide helpful. Check these troubleshooting and repair guides for more help on your Mercedes-Benz.
Only went to top up the washer bottle! Had problem with bonnet (hood) alarm and tried absolutely everything I could think of to resolve it – cleaned latches & sensors etc etc etc…..then noticed that one latch probably wasn’t connecting properly (only realised when I closed the bonnet, properly I thought, and then detected very very minor movement in vicinity of the offside latch)…loosened one latch bolt and removed the other; placed thin washer underneath to raise the latch corner up by around 1.5 mm; replaced latch bolt and ‘what do you know’ !!!!!! Problem solved once and for all. Total cost in money – about 2p. Total cost in time before I realised- about 1 hour. Total fix time – less than 5 minutes!!!! Hope this helps someone one day