Hello All, I am george and I am new to Camry Forums. I own a 2011 Camry and purchased it new. It has been a great car, it's dependable, still great on gas, still very solid and quiet and comfortable even after all the years. And this brings me to my reason for finding and joining this site. Allow me to explain;
About 7 or 8 months ago I began noticing that the right side of my hood , closest to the windshield, seemed to be raising up. Of course my first thought was that there is no way that the hood is drifting. I know the hood hinges are not adjustable, but to makes sure I raised the hood to check and the are not adjustable. So at the beginning I just kind of let this observation go.

A month or two later while washing the car I noticed that the right side of the hood seemed to be a bit higher off the car and also the rubber seal that is placed between the fender and the bottom of the windshield had "popped" out of place. So reset the rubber seal and then I raised the hood to see if just maybe something was extending into the path of the hood and forcing it to raise when it was closed. Still nothing. This time I went to the left side of the car to look and see if the hood was raising there or if anything was out of place there. But everything seemed to be in place as designed.

Let's fast forward to present, its been about 7 months since I first noticed this issue and today again the hood seemed a bit higher and I found the rubber seal that had popped out earlier is once again popped out only now when I try to replace it the seal is too long. In otherwords the place where the hood is raising is sort of moving inward toward the center of the car.

The hood is now 1/2 inch or about 13mm above the fender/body line. I have added some pics for folks to review.
To be honest I am baffled, I am a mechanic but I am not a good body person, I leave that up to the folks who are trained for it and are really much better at body work.

The car has never been in an accident so I can blame this issue on that. Again I am the original owner and I have been its only driver , I've never lent it to anyone.

If anyone has ever seen this issue before or maybe even worked such an issue would you please let me know what cause it and how it was resolved.

Thank you all for reading this post. george

Hood Right rear raised

(Kinda blurry) The rubber seal that does not fit

Right side expansion joint fully closed

Left side Hood and expansion joints, normal as designed

 

Is the hood, fender or ? moving. Appears to be the fender.

The link below has something on adjusting the hood.
https://www.tcamanual.com/hood-627.html

The front fender would be bolted to the chassis. YouTube has videos of replacing the fender. View video to get an idea of how the fender is installed then check installment for issues.

 

Thank you JoeyP for your quick reply. You may be right, it could be more about the fender moving which would be as you stated that portion of the chassis is moving. So I will look at that this morning. The adjustment for the hood is more of a forward / rearward adjustment and not an up/down which is what I would need.

If the chassis is moving would you have an idea of what to look for, an indication that there might be a chassis problem. My experience with unibody over the years has taught me that if one section gets warped or misaligned it'll show elsewhere. In this case the movement seems to be confined to the front right.
At this time I am trying to avoid taking it to a body shop until I have a better idea of what might be causing is issue. Right now what I am seeing is steering me toward having to trade it for a new one, but I dont really want to do that if I can fix it.

Thank you for you help Joeyp. george

 

The unibody isn't going to move around unless its severely rusted out or gets damaged in an accident. Check for rust and assume you know if the car was in accident.

Look into the engine compartment at the at the sheet metal surrounding the engine. Everything you see is part of the unibody. The outside fenders bolt to the unibody along the door frame and upper engine compartment.

Take some measurements of the hood to the unibody area. Look for differences between left and right side hood measurements. If the hood is moving sideways the gap on one side would increase while the gap on the other would decrease. If it moving up on one side the distance between the unibody and hood on each side would be different.

Also compare the left and right side doors gaps.

To adjust the rear hood height shims as sometimes used between hinge and hood.

The fender has a plastic inner wheel protective water/debris shield that can be removed to look around.

The finders and doors are none structural. The car can safely be driven from a structual standpoint without them.

 

Hello All, well I did as JoeyP suggested and removed the wheelwell panel and did a thorough look at all the connection points both under the fender and at the car body. I cannot see anything out of place. Does not appear that anything is loose or bent or broken. Sooooo I guess the next stop is a body/collision shop and let the Pros check the car over and see what they come up with.
Thank you joeyp for your interest and suggestions. I appreciate the help. I'll update this thread after I learn more. -- george

 

Post back with any finds!

 

Good Day everyone. As requested I am providing an update to the issue I brought to this forum about a month ago with regard to the the right rear of my hood sticking up and not seating.

Well after much examination I found that the hinge was becoming rusted and its ability to move freely was being restricted. Cleared the hinge of the rust lubricated the hinge and everything returned to normal.

What caused the rust, the hinge is hidden under the fender mount area and this area seems to be a location for leaves and road debris to build up. The hinge on both sides are located just above the drain area for the front seals and so over time, even tho I had cleared the area of leaves, some of that debris built up in the hinge compartment and remained there.
Cleared out now tho and its something I'll keep an eye on in the future.

Thank you all for your interest and assistance. george

 

While your at it, check the door water drain points located at the bottom of the each door.