After a trip to the paint shop, my front hood will no longer latch on my 1988 Pontiac Fiero Formula.. The release lever has tension, but the locking latch will not latch down. Any ideas?

Take it back and have the paint shop adjust the hood.

I think the problem is in the latch. When the latch hook is rotated toward the "lock" position, it does not latch. It is like the latch is always in the "unlocked" mode.

That is a cool car- GM decided to make a nice-handling Fiero- just before they discontinued them- now, for your question: some gorilla tweaked your latch- it happens- take it to a good mechanic and have it fixed right- body shops don't pay attention to the details- hope the paint turned out ok-

Many thanks to Full_of_Regrets, Tom, and jamnblues for their replies. When I picked up the Fiero from the paint shop, (the paint job turned out great), I noticed that the hood was not latched down. The shop manager and assistant manager, who are my friends, looked at the latch and didn't have any more ideas than I did as to why the latch seemed to be in the perpetual unlocked position. They invited me to bring the car back and they would see if they could fix the problem. However, I agree with jamnblues, it may be better to go to an old time GM mechanic and let him have a look. I'll let you know how it all turns out and will post a couple of photos. Thanks again.

I would guess that some lubrication might take care of it. Paint over spay may have gummed up the works.

I thought the same thing, but some WD-40 followed in a couple of days with a light weight oil, didn't make any difference. The latch rotates just fine, but I think that maybe the cable is hung up in the "open" position. I checked the Fiero Auxiliary opening cable, but it seems to be stowed properly.

Oiling the cable and working it for a while may take care of the problem. There may be an adjustment so I would look for that too.

Problem was solved by getting under the dash and closely examining the Auxiliary Opening Cable. It was not in the retainer as first thought. I pushed the cable back into the housing and the end into the retainer clip . Hurrah! The hood closes, locks down, and the regular opening lever works fine. Thanks for your interest and support.