If you’ve found this post you’ve probably realized how badly designed the Scion iM \ Toyota Corolla iM hood latch is as far as engineering goes. I bought my car certified used from a Toyota dealer with less than 18,000 miles on it, which if you think about it had probably only had the hood popped less than 5-6 times since it came from the factory considering this car has 5000 mile intervals per the maintenance schedule, and 10,000 mile intervales for oil changes. Ever since day one of me owning it, the hood latch has had nothing but issues trying to open. Pulling the hood latch release on this car has maybe popped up once or twice since owning it, getting the hood to release from the release lever has been an issue since the day I bought it. After putting 60k miles on this car and battling the hood latch every time I wanted to open the hood, I decided it was time to replace this poorly designed part.
Here’s a video of the main issue, trying to open the hood.
As you can see the only way to make this latch move to the side is you have to have enough force to twist the level to release the hood. This is quite hard to do when there is very little room with the hood popped. I’ve come to learn that because of there are so many bends on the hood latch it’s prone to warp if you get someone that doesn’t understand how it needs to move to release the latch in order to open the hood.
After battling with a dead battery this last winter in frigid cold temperatures, I decided to look at replacing the hood latch. I noticed on Toyota’s part catalog that the factory hood latch part number 53510-12B00 has an updated replacement part number 53510-12B01. Part of me was initially thinking they redesigned the hood latch because of the issue I’ve had pretty much since day one of owning this vehicle.
After looking around for the best online deal, I ordered the replacement part from ToyotaPartsDeal for $44.14 plus shipping ($11.42). I tried to find a coupon code or free shipping but was unable to find one that worked. My local dealer quoted me $65 just for the part so overall it was still cheaper, but it did take a little longer to get.
The new replacement part looks almost identical to the original, however the bends on the updated part may be updated which I will show later.
To replace the existing one, first remove the following two screws for this bracket, as you will need to rotate it out the way to get to the three bolts that need to be removed to replace the hood latch.
Unhook the hood latch cable which can be easily done by depressing the latch by hand.
With the hose bracket removed and twisted out of the way, remove the three bolts holding the hood latch in place.
One here (passenger side bolt):
Another here (bottom bolt):
And the last one here (driver side bolt):
After removing the three bolts holding the hood latch in place, remove the hood latch cable from the bracket to so you can remove the hood latch from the car.
Looking at both new part and old part side by side, it becomes apparent that old hood latch has a different shape than the new replacement part. I’m not totally sure if this is in fact a redesign of the bends of this part, or it is mainly because the old one is bent so bad that it doesn’t have the same bends as the new replacement part, either way I was hopeful the new hood latch would work better than the only one.
I reinstalled the new part in reverse order, attached the cable to the bracket, reinstalled the three bolts holding the latch, then both bolts holding the hose bracket.
After reinstalling the new part, oh man what a difference! As you can see in the video the latch can move freely just by pushing up with one finger and not having to try to twist it with two fingers.
The hood also pops up when the latch is pulled.
Hopefully the new replacement part won’t continue being a battle trying to open the hood.