I know this may be something easy that I am missing but today when I had the hood open and went to shut it all the way it would only latch to the first position......the safety catch. I checked inside the vehicle to make sure the hood release lever was pulled and the hood latch was in the correct position...which I believe the safety catch would not work either if this was the case. Anyone have an idea on what this odd issue could be? I know it has something to do with the lock mechanism and the corner bumpers are not the issue of it not going down all the way because they are not making contact with the hood.

 

Try having someone pull the latch from inside the car while you push the hood shut.
The lock has sprung into the locked position.

 

I will try that when I have someone here to assist.....thanks!!!

 

Are you certain you did not leave anything under the hood?

 

I knew someone was going to ask that.......Yes I verified that nothing was left under the hood to obstruct closing the hood.....LOL

 

I had the same thing happen on the trunk lid of a car I had, the two jaws sprang together into the locked position and .I had to pry them apart into the open position.
That round bar on the cars body releases a catch between the two open jaws and the jaws close around the round bar when the hood or trunk lid is closed.

 

Should be easy to confirm by inspecting the locking mechanism for the hood. If it's closed, BINGO! So what would be the "root cause" of this failure mode? Weak spring, defective catch or something similar that prevented the lock mechanism from remaining open. Something is supposed to hold it open. And something holds jaws closed when lid is closed and/or locked. Never really looked in detail to see how it worked. Gives me something to do later today.