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Depends on the hood. My truck you can practically jump on the hood and it won't dent. My '93 lately I've been getting it to within 6" and giving it a little push and she goes in fine. I have to make sure I don't pinch off my oil cooler lines, and my grille is only held on properly by the one bolt.

Drop from the last foot. My PDR guy removed hood dents I didn't even know about (which you then cannot unsee), caused by pushing the hood closed. That was enough for me.

My Buick LeSabre has a front hinged hood. I have to pull it down then go to the front of the car and give it a firm push to shut it. The designs makes it easy to close it this way, and not so easy to slam it shut.
The downside is access to the front of the engine bay is restricted.

Roger.

I want to chime in on the trunk torsion bars portion of this thread. One of my torsion bars broke and I had it replaced at a dealer. Then the replacement broke and they replaced it again, but they set it to less tension so the trunk just *barely* popped open. The trunk lid would stay open fine once it was opened if it was on a level surface, but my driveway is on an incline and a slight breeze was enough to send it crashing down. I didn't pay much attention to this until the thing smashed into my forehead and messed me up for a couple weeks. I tried to adjust the bar on my own with a socket extension but just couldn't get enough leverage. I ultimately had my mechanic adjust it with a guy who crawled into the trunk. I think they're harder to adjust on the pre-2000 Bonnevilles. Now it pops open nicely and stays open with a bit more force. (It was worth it.)

I think it fully depends on the car.... Ive done the Tommy Boy move before where the hood has flown open at highway speeds so im hesident to do a small push... the buick has shocks, but not the strongest i push and let drop only about a foot or two to not damage the grill as that is the weak spot on my car... the jeep i let fall as the angle is awkward and the hood is heavy... the beetle has a nose bra, and even without it you have to push it closed hard to shut it.... it all depends on the car.

The hood struts on my SLE didn't hold the hood up when the outside temperature was below a certain threshold, so it often closed itself. On to the back of my head.

I lower by hand until the struts release most of their pressure, then a release from about 6 inches is all it takes.

Backhoe wrote:I lower by hand until the struts release most of their pressure, then a release from about 6 inches is all it takes.

Yep, that's what I do. That's all you need.

Depends on the car. Looking just at 92-99, the 92-95 Bonnevilles had very rigid mounts on the grills and you can let it drop without issues, for the most part this is also true for the 96-99 sse grill. But if you drop the hood shut on a 96-99 SE grill you will eventually bust the outer two mounts off the grill.

thinking about it, my hood point did start to deform but it was quite a small point for hood on the GTP guess drop is safe option

On the '01 I let it drop from just under shoulder height. With the intercooler there's contact between the M90 and the hood, barely but it's touching, so it needs a firm shut. I always pull up afterwards too to make sure.

On the '93 though with the headlight covers I let the hood down gently and push it down to latch. Letting the hood fall shut has broken the headlight covers in the past.