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Third time's a charm: Nissan recalls Altimas for hood latches...again

Nearly a million midsized sedans are facing recall, some of which have been brought in twice before.

Andrew Krok Reviews Editor / Cars
Cars are Andrew's jam, as is strawberry. After spending years as a regular ol' car fanatic, he started working his way through the echelons of the automotive industry, starting out as social-media director of a small European-focused garage outside of Chicago. From there, he moved to the editorial side, penning several written features in Total 911 Magazine before becoming a full-time auto writer, first for a local Chicago outlet and then for CNET Cars.
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Andrew Krok

Nissan issued a recall for the 2013-2015 Altima sedan -- covering some 930,000 models worldwide -- for a problem related to the hood latch. For some of the vehicles covered under this recall, it will be the third time this vehicles have been requested to head back to dealerships.

If at first, you don't succeed...

The issue lies with the main hood latch -- the one that requires the extra-hard slam to secure. Paint can flake off this latch, and the exposed metal underneath may corrode, leaving the secondary hood latch -- the one that requires an under-hood uncoupling -- to hold the whole thing together.

The secondary latch isn't supposed to hold the hood down at speed, so there's a chance (however small) that the hood could pop up on the fly. Considering that's a great way to get into an accident, Nissan's issuing a recall to replace the potentially faulty main latch.

Nissan told the Associated Press that there are no reports of this happening, but one can never be too cautious.