In 2020, reports of the front hood voluntarily opening riddled the C8 Corvette Stingray. Of course, it was an alarming issue and something that shouldn’t go overlooked. When the front hood opens on its own, accidents can happen, especially while driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has two related incidents reported, and that’s not something you can easily shrug off.
General Motors did issue several recalls for the C8 Corvettes regarding this problem. In initial statements, Chevrolet stated that its engineering team could not “identify any mechanical issues related to this situation.” They released over-the-air updates to improve the “volume of warning chimes and change the messaging that appears in the DIC.” These updates were to prevent the situation from happening due to user error.
Until now, it has been a mystery why the C8 frunks disengage on their own. It seems the hood problems are still plaguing the C8 Corvette Stingray. We saw a TikTok video uploaded by user “jaysmizle,” where he indicated his Torch Red C8 Corvette recently suffered from a front hood actuator failure.
In the video, the user stated that he is not faking things to get views or to gain traction adding fuel to the fire. He even showed a service slip from Hendrick’s Chevrolet, a dealership in California, that indicated an error to the frunk. Specifically, the receipt says the following: “hood front open message, actuator internal failure.” The fix was to replace the malfunctioning actuator with a new one.
Fortunately, he didn’t spend anything to replace this due to his existing claim with the dealership. But at the same time, it is quite alarming that such an issue plagues the C8 Corvette. While it is true that this could be an isolated case, it is not something that should be dismissed, especially by Chevrolet. With the history of malfunctioning front trunks, Chevrolet needs to take this particular issue seriously.
These electronic actuators have a simple function. They are quite useful whenever opening the front trunk. So one would need the actuator to work for it to be helpful.
We sincerely hope that Chevrolet will address this matter as well.