Just picked up a 2016 Unlimited Willys today with only 19k miles. This thing is immaculate, and I love the Mojave Sand color. This evening as I was looking around the vehicle and soaking it in, I noticed I had some issues getting the locking hood latches to go into place properly after opening the hood. They will latch fine, but not to the point of being able to actually lock, which was odd to me. Upon noticing this, I also noticed the hood and fender gap is almost non existent near the very front of the vehicle. There is also paint chipping away down to bare metal where the hood and fender are touching, on both sides. I decided to give the underside a look, and come to find there are no rubber grommets or anything establishing a gap to prevent this from happening like most vehicles. I’ve done tons of research this evening and can’t find anything at all. All I know is other Jeeps I’m looking at don’t appear to have this lack of a gap? Is this normal or is something definitely wrong here? I’ve worked in body shops for going on 6 years and have never seen a vehicle without rubber grommets/stops under the hood. For the record, it has never been in an accident or anything that would indicate a prior issue that would be causing this.

 

Welcome to JKF. I checked my 13 JKU it has No grommets / stops.. it has thin rubber blocks under the hood latch that wrap around the edge.. It has rubber cushion on the spring by the secondary hood latch,, but that is not adjustable.. What hood latches are on? Being in body shop pull All Data and check the measurements on the gaps.

 

I checked with the dealer today, definitely nothing different with my Wrangler in comparison to other JKs on the underside of the hood. But definitely a noticeable difference in the gaps, specifically near the front of the hood. Something is definitely off. And as far as the latches go, I’m not 100% sure as they came with the vehicle. They are locking and take a small key. They seem to latch fine, until you go to lock them and it seems like they are off just enough to prevent the lock from actually going into place. When I get some free time this week I’m going to mess with the latches and see if they can be adjusted. If that doesn’t fix the issue the dealer said they will take it back and fix the hood alignment. Typically I wouldn’t care about something like this, but this thing doesn’t have a single scratch or ding on it anywhere else; and I’d like to keep it that way for a while. As far as the gap measurements, unfortunately I’m on the insurance side of auto claims now and can’t run searches on vehicles not attached to a claim due to audits.

 

Sounds a bit strange. So there are definitely aftermarket hood latches on it. Wondering if there is just enough play in those that a poor install job has one side pulling the hood more than it would otherwise sit. If you undo the latches, lift the hood up and just gently sit it back down, without being latched, are the gaps still different or does the hood naturally sit better? You can tell if those hood hinges have ever been removed cuz the jeep is painted with them in place.....and I suspect from your commentary there are no signs of that. Also, the fender and quarter panels surely haven't been touched with so few miles and no signs of accidents. Maybe it is just poor fitment or manufacturing on that specific vehicle when built.

 

Yeah when you leave it unlatched, there’s relatively no issues at all with the fitment. It seems like it wants to sit more to the driver side but that feels influenced by the part of the latch attached to the fender. It’s when you latch the hood that it is forcefully pulled into the fender. The hood appears to never have been removed. Of course the dealer wants it back to “fix the alignment of the hood”, but I’m positive it’s because of the latches. Which at that point they said they “can’t mess with aftermarket parts”. But then tell me not to mess with it myself because I bought it this way. Typical dealer crap lol. I’ll get some pics later to show what I’m referring to. You can see the gap in this photo and the latches.

 

If that is the case, I'd try a different latch. Small price to pay for something that is pretty aggravating. Maybe you can get the latches adjusted a bit better.....if not I'd buy different ones.