Hi . The bonnet release cable has broken on my car somewhere near the bonnet end. Had the car on a ramp but no joy. Had AA out, spent 1 hr looking and fiddling but no joy. Any ideas please . Kind Regards James

sorry to thread hijack, but the exact same thing has just happened to me. so a free bump for v40 driver

Hi,When my cable snapped I had to cut out the front grill and undo the bolts on the bonnet catch,the grill cost me £90 from a scrap dealer on the internet.hope this helps.

spoke to volvo dealer, and he said the only way is to take the bumper off or smash the grill out and do it that way. bummer ey

Same thing happened to me yesterday... Glad this forum had a couple of posts on the topic and as suggested on another thread on the same topic here I managed to detach the 3 mounting bolts of bonnet catch using a 1/4 inch socket and extension (extension just fits through grill but need to get hand through lower grill opening to fit socket to bar once bar pushed through grill) had to do lower bolt with spanner access through lower air scoop (should there be a grille there? its just open to all stones and debris on my old 1996 v40)

Once undone have to use screwdriver through the grille to prise lock mechanism past lip which still stops bonnet opening unless you use a screwdriver as lever

Great, so bonnet now open, but... just off to bike shop to get a long inner cable and solderless nipples and attempt to thread a new inner if the old outer is not too intenally damaged and the path is smooth enough....

old cable was rusted and damaged in several places, a good idea for people to lube this bit of cable at the bonnet end (get the lube right down inside the outer cable) as it obviously suffers from weather damage...

but... it was my own fault... I pulled too hard on the mechanism after I felt the catch unlock, but better to find out now than on a dark country road without a toolkit... :(

Regards!

Cool Web Site!

Great, got a bicycle gear cable inner 120 inch long, its about 1.2mm diameter where original was 1.3mm so its a bit thinner, cut off nipple at one end, tinned the cable ends with some solder to stop fraying as threading and the new inner slipped in to old outer fine, attached solderless nipple and hey presto... bonnet release working again... didnt have to faff around with threading new outer which manual says involves wheel off and arch inners removing...

cheers Pablo. still havent got round to doing mine. now i know a gear cable works i will get cracking. im heavily into mountain biking so will have a gear cable kicking around