Originally Posted by Former Shasta

Have a 2011 JKU. Have noticed hood flutter on my 2.5" lifted JK a few times. Order Daystar latches but never installed them. Currently on a cross country road trip towing a little 13 ft. Boler camper. Was driving through Western Wyoming heading towards Rocky Mountain National Park when a Big Rig blew by me. The wind force was so violent, it lifted my hood up, breaking the left side hood latch. I bungied it, and wound up in small town Wyoming at a NAPA auto parts looking for a replacement. No dice. It would have to be ordered. The story was the same with every Jeep dealership within 100 miles. A nice gentlemen helped me use a simple ratchet to keep the hood down. I was going to wind up in Snowmass, so I had the closest dealership in Glenwood Springs, CO., order me the part. $63! I installed it pretty quickly, not even using the entire part (which was assembled wrong anyway). I also removed the spring for added safetly. This seems like a pretty major safety flaw in the JK. I can't believe no one stocks this part. Maybe my experience was very rare. Who knows? Daystar goes on as soon as I get home.

Originally Posted by Mountain Man Tim

the first thing I ordered for my new jeep in june when I got home was a set of rugged ridge black aluminum stainless shanked adjustable metal hood locks. theres zero play in them, once you have them tightened just right you lock them into position with nuts on the shanks. They were nearly $100 for the set of 2, and a pain in the backside to install (had to take off the grill, and have long arm floppy headed socket, and take things on to wrenches to get them threaded) but were worth every penny and the busted knuckles installing them for the fact that they arent rubber, they dont flutter, and my hood is never flapping, it tried to flex in the middle when meeting a semi doing 60+ in high winds, but the locks dont budge.

Originally Posted by Ncb

What broke? Plastic part of latch assembly or the (Bowflex) rubber bungee?

Originally Posted by onlyone

Taking the spring off doesn't help everyone's problem. Only solves a small number. I laugh every time someone says to just remove the spring. Lol

Originally Posted by Mark Doiron

Removing the spring helps, but under truly severe situations the hood bounce will still occur. Zip-ties will stop it--until one breaks. And when that happens, it was a pretty severe force that did so. I've had three break since I started using zip-ties, and that was about 140K miles ago. I also have the JeepSWAG fix, which is really very elegant: A small piece of square tubing zip-tied under the radiator crossover within the gap between the bottom of the crossover and the top of the safety latch. When you open the hood, it doesn't pop up until you reach through the grill and slide the latch sideways. Then you can raise the hood normally. So, it could have a secondary benefit of making a thief think you have secured your hood with an additional lock because it doesn't go up so he can release the safety catch.

Originally Posted by onlyone

Taking the spring off doesn't help everyone's problem. Only solves a small number. I laugh every time someone says to just remove the spring. Lol

Originally Posted by JbosRubicon

Mark can you show a pic of the tubing you are referring to and what it looks like installed?

Originally Posted by Rtittsworth

X2 on this. I took my spring out and while it did improve flutter, it didn't halt it altogether. I'll be ordering Daystar latches before my September trip to CO.

Originally Posted by davecaris

I agree, removed my spring and ended up just putting it back in place.