S40 bonnet (hood) catch broken - how do I open bonnet?!

I pulled the bonnet catch on my UK S40 1.6 (2000 if it makes any
difference) yesterday, and the lever went all floppy...the wire had
come out of the catch.
Had a quick look and tried to lever the catch through the grill, local
garage couldn't sort it either. Called Volvo, they want "anything
between £95 and £195 + vat and parts" to sort it out. As this is the
same (only) garage that charged me £28 labour PLUS PARTS to change a
wiper blade (3 minute job, meaning they must be pricing labour at
£560/hour!) I thought I'd give it a miss and see if you fine people
had any suggestions.

What I can see is a little lever which you pull up, but fiddling with a
screwdriver didn't seem to work. Is there something else I need to
tweak first?

 

I had to bite the bullet and take the front grille off to open mine

Andy
UK
1998 V40
I pulled the bonnet catch on my UK S40 1.6 (2000 if it makes any
difference) yesterday, and the lever went all floppy...the wire had
come out of the catch.
Had a quick look and tried to lever the catch through the grill, local
garage couldn't sort it either. Called Volvo, they want "anything
between £95 and £195 + vat and parts" to sort it out. As this is the
same (only) garage that charged me £28 labour PLUS PARTS to change a
wiper blade (3 minute job, meaning they must be pricing labour at
£560/hour!) I thought I'd give it a miss and see if you fine people
had any suggestions.

What I can see is a little lever which you pull up, but fiddling with a
screwdriver didn't seem to work. Is there something else I need to
tweak first?

 

I gave up finding a garage who knew, so I just had to go for it and
pull the grill off. This DID break the plastic clips, but I did an
invisible mend with some clever use of grey cable ties until I get a
decent replacement grille from a breakers yard.

I looked carefully, and I could see no way I could have made a tool to
get at the bonnet release, even once I'd seen it, it seemed too fiddly.

The cost of the repair? 30 minutes of time, a £2 bicycle brake cable
and a 20p solderless nipple. ..