Broken hood release cable. How to open?

Greetings from BC. You might be able to move the latch with a screwdriver. My experiences are with an '85 and '90 Golf, not sure if this will work on a '99. I tried taking a picture of the mechanism to send but the photo didn't show much. Anyways kneeling in front of the car and peering into the gaps in the grill or VW logo, you should see a small spring near the hood latch mechanism. This spring pulls the latch leftwards (towards the passenger side) which engages the plunger attached to the hood. This is the spring that provides the resistive force when you pull on the hood release lever inside the car.

Looking at the anchors at the two ends of the spring. The left end (passenger side) is anchored to the cross-member of the front of the car. The right hand end (driver's side) is anchored to the hood latch. If you can put a screwdriver on where the spring is anchored on its right hand end, you should be able to move the latch to the right (towards driver's side) and open the hood. Also try pressing down on the hood to relieve the friction on the latch.

My problem was the opposite, the spring broke and the hood wouldn't close, I had to manually move the latch to the left to close the hood. Eventually I replaced the spring.

Good luck.

-Tony

Jack wrote:

Thanks, Tony.

The 99 is different - the necessary lever is completely shielded from the front and below with the frame steel......

Try> Greetings from BC. You might be able to move the latch with a

Checked another A3, looked as if we could remove the latch assembly.

We pulled the plastic grill out at the top, inserted a 10 mm socket on a 1/4" extention to remove the two horizontal retaining bolts.

It worked.

The cable end had slipped out of the two retaining fingers on the primary latch lever.

Jack

Jack wrote: