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Has anyone else had trouble closing the engine cover? Is there a trick to get it locked down? I have only had the car for about two weeks and I like to keep an eye on the oil but that little tab is already starting to bend! It looks like it is setted correctly?
There is a "clip", for lack of a better term, that slides over the hole and mine seemed to keep moving as I was trying to twist the fastener. I was getting worried that the tab on the fastener was going to snap off too.
I also tried to do this within a half hour of getting home from a drive of more than an hour. I think my fingers were on the verge of blistering after several unsuccessful tries, and I'm in CT., I can only imagine how hot that cover & fastener get in AZ. I would recommend keeping a pair of work gloves in the car if you plan on checking the oil after the car has been run for any length of time.
I had the same problem when I first got my car. I would have to give the fastener a half turn and retry almost every time I had to lock down the cover.
It has taken a few months, but it is getting easier over time.
Watch the two latches toward the front of the car (not the side with locking pin). If Tab A doesn't fit into Slot B exactly right, that single pin won't ever align well enough. Just a few mm off is enough to really make life difficult.
If you can't just lean on the cover a bit and twist it shut like a jar of pickles, your alignment's probably off and forcing the issue could damage the pin. Likewise if you get no resistance.
They are a type of fastner that are quite common on a lot of race cars if they dont just click into place there is a problem somewhere that needs attention cover not in place so on it is fiddly at first you will get the hang of it or break a bunch of them. good luck
karl
Just had the same problem on my parent's new Passion, not quite as bad when mine was new. It'll get better over time as the cover gasket flattens.
What I did to lock the fastener in place. Took my big 200lb booty and crawled ON the engine cover to compress the gasket and locked the fastener in place. This was only done after fiddling with it for about 45 minutes!
Forcing is not necessary, new gasket or not. Slide the cover forward such that the slot is under the ears and turn the latch. If it won't latch fairly easily, wiggle the cover side-to-side slightly and you will feel it "pop" toward the front of the car. Hard to explain, but if the latch is difficult to turn, the cover is NOT in the right place, regardless of how it appears...
regardless of the proper method, there are countless number of fasteners that would do as good a job at latching without the propensity for breakage & user frustration. a simple cam-lock would have sufficed and would have been far easier to deploy.
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