Slamming the Hood on the Dodge Charger Daytona EV Could Break It

Did you know there’s only one way to close a Dodge Charger Daytona‘s hood? Well, I’m sure you can close it a few different ways, but there’s only one that’s recommended by Dodge. If only owners knew, they wouldn’t have to take their shiny new electric muscle cars to the dealer for a hood that won’t open.

Jordan Rose is a service tech at Hall Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Virginia Beach, and he posted a YouTube video showing two Charger Daytonas side-by-side with identical problems. Both of them had hood latches that would only release if you manually pulled the cable. Pushing the button inside did next to nothing, which is pretty frustrating on a brand-new car that stickers for north of $60,000.

Comparing the cars’ hood latches to a new one showed that the bottom metal piece was tweaked out of position. This is why those hoods wouldn’t budge, no matter what the owners tried.

While investigating the problem, Rose learned that there’s a specified hood-close procedure in the Charger Daytona owners’ manual. “You think that a hood is a hood, but apparently on this car, it’s not,” Rose said. That means you can’t just grab the top and slam it down; instead, you have to lower it on top of the latch and then firmly press down with two hands. It’s not one swift motion but two separate ones to keep the latch from breaking—well, three if you count “confirm hood is latched in place” as its own step.

To replace the hood latch, dealer techs have to remove each plastic panel inside the Charger Daytona’s frunk. The latch itself is held on by two 10-millimeter bolts, plus a couple of connectors. Rose, being the experienced mechanic that he is, made fairly quick work of the repair, but it might not be covered under warranty if it’s considered user error. That could lead to owners paying $200 an hour for shop labor, and if you think I’m way high on that number, just check this Reddit thread on r/serviceadvisors.

To be clear, I don’t think this is a huge knock on Dodge. It’s no big deal so long as owners know. But if these two examples prove anything, it’s that most owners won’t know unless they see a warning like Rose’s or, a lot less likely, read the owner’s manual. That might lead to more than one expensive lesson for Charger Daytona drivers who just wanted to close the frunk after a trip into town.

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