How to Replace Hood Latch 2008-12 Honda Accord

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

Open the hood. Reach down, and pull the release. Located far down here by your left foot, where it rests. Pull it open. Release the secondhand latch. Just push up on it. Lift it up. Put those down for a second.

The hood has two positions. Normal position, and then if you open it further, there is a second service position here. I'll put it there for now. Remove the eight push clips from the upper grille cover. Just start on one side. Pry it up with a small plastic screwdriver. Pry it up with a small, flat bladed screwdriver. Prying open the middle unlocks the clip when you pry open the outside to unlock it. You may need to get a trim clip tool that can help to unlock it. Pull it right out. Just repeat that for all of them. Last one here. Pull this cover off. It slides behind the grille, just lift it up. Slide it out from the chrome grille and from underneath the fenders, slide off of the safety lock and put it aside. We're going to lift the vehicle up to get to the clips under the bumper.

You could do this with the vehicle on the ground. But in order to show you, we're going to put it up in the lift so it's easier to see. On both sides of the car, there is a Phillips head screw up in this recessed opening. You're going to remove that. I'll repeat that for the other side.

There are ten push clips on the front edge of the bumper. These are removed just like the ones up top using a small flat bladed screwdriver. Push out the middle, and then pry them out of the bumper. They get filled up with dirt. Sometimes they're hard to unlock. Just pry them open with a small flat bladed screwdriver, and then get the trim clip tool in there. Kind of work them open. Work along the edge, find all the clips, and pull them out. They might break. You might have to replace them. They get brittle with age. Front bumper is setting on two pins on either side. Just kind of pop it up like that, and over here. That's the front.

Now we'll come to one side and pull it straight out. It's going to sound like it's breaking, but you're just pulling it off of the clips. Just work it down around the headlight. Make sure it's off of that pin that we'll pop back on. Do the same for the other side. Give it a bit of a swift tug. And now, I'm going to get off those pins, support it, and pull it straight off the vehicle.

Get to the hood latch and remove this plastic cover. Slides over these two white clips. This one will slide up this way, and up and off of it, then rotate it. It's just clipped to the bottom of the radius port. Just kind of work it off and then slide it this way. See that clip? It clips around the bottom of the radius port. There are three 10 millimeter bolts that hold the hood latch on. Use a 10 millimeter socket, extension, and ratchet to remove them.

To remove the latch from the hood cable, just pull it straight out. This little ball on the cable will unhook through there. We have our hood latch. Reconnect the hood cable through the opening and over, and then push it back into place. We can see the outlines of where the hood latch was. These holes are slotted and can be adjusted. You can adjust it side to side, up and down, however you need to adjust the hood latch. I will line it up where it was originally.

Reinstall the bolts. We have to move the lever here. Line up this one here. It's hard to see, but there's actually three marks. They've got some dirt in them, so they're easier to see. There's a small line on the hood latch—this could help you align it. See, we've got one on the top, one in the middle, and one on the bottom. This was originally lined up with the middle ones. I'm also going by the outline along the edge here so that's why I'm going to line it up that way. Pull them both tight. We'll move this lever out of the way and tighten this one. Capture this plastic around this here and tilt it up. Try to capture that clip in the bottom. And then push that over some more. Go up and then down. Plastic cover's in place.

Reinstall the bumper. Go straight on with it. It does have some pins right here that it's going to sit on, on both sides. It helps keep it from falling off. Get the bumper lined up in the brackets. Push it right in, and snap it in place. And the same for both sides.

We're going to push the fender liner up in behind the bumper. Just like that. Install this Phillips head screw, so the bumper doesn't fall off, while I put the push clips back in. Make it tight. I'll just stop. Do the same for this side. I'm going to go along the bumper now and reinstall all the push clips I removed. Push them back into place. If you have broken ones, you'll replace them. Put the last one in. Now reinstall this upper cover. Put it over the little rubber bumpers, then this part goes behind the grille. Just kind of have to bend it and flex it. It slides in like that. Do the same for both sides. And place all the push clips. Put push clips in. Hood down.

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