i have a wire, i think its white, that is straped by like 6 Plastic ties to the strut bar. it is incased in the thin black wire protector stuff. it starts on the left and goes across to the right, but as it comes off the strut bar its cut :? Doe anyone have any idea what this wire is for?
i do have one wierd issue.
a) I got my hood noise dampener heat thing replaced a couple years back.
b) My light to my hood does not come on when the hood opens. only WHEN YOU TURN THE HEADLIGHTS ON!

my question: is this the hood sensor wire that is tied to the strut bar and they cut it then wired my hood light into another circuit that only works when the headlights are on? The wire that is cut is right next to where the cluster of taped wires goes into the hood under the dampener.

That wire may have been for an alarm or a stereo the previous owner had, that is, if you bought your car used. Does the other end lead to the battery?

My hood light also only comes on when the headlights are on, as far as I can tell, my hood insulation is original, however my hood is new. But, the light worked the same before and after the new hood. So, it beats me. :?

I noticed that wire in your pics. I was wondering that myself! But the hood light doesn't work unless at least the parking lights are on. I guess it'* not supposed to go on if the lights are off. That'* at least what my owner'* manual says...kind of a pain. :?

That would be an aftermarket installation of some sort. GM doesn't use plastic ties as you describe, wouldn't strap anything to the strut bar anyhow, and the flexible conduit is available anywhere. (I used 10 feet of the stuff when adding the remote starter to my SSEi.)

That'* the way it'* supposed to be. You don't want the light blazing away anytime you've got the hood open, only when you _need_ lighting under there (and as far as that little light is concerned, you gotta assume it would be for emergency use anyway), so they wire it to the external lighting circuits instead of unswitched accessory power, so you can use it after dark. Otherwise your battery would go dead just because you leave the hood up for too long...

No, most likely if you trace the hood light wire it'll go to a brown lead, the external lighting circuit.

Probably an aftermarket alarm system that got yanked out at some later date. Switched-ground circuits such as those feeding pin switches on the hood, doors and trunk are frequently color-coded with white wires. (Permanent ground = black; switched ground = white)

I have a 95 ssei also and I don't have that wire. Whatever it is is aftermarket just like jwikoff99 said.

Cool, thanks for the input guys, i think im gonna yank it then. i cant see where it ends up because it goes down to the left into a big cluster of tape. If It aint doing anything i would rather not have strapped_on_there. :? wasnt really noticeable when it was black.

It might take a couple days... but ya it would eventually go dead, I suppose
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Most vehicles hood lights turn on when you open it a certain distance. I replaced mine after I bought it because I never turned on when I opened the hood and then realized that the stupid lights have to be on.

I did the same thing kuhl. Now i got 2 Xtra hood bulbs. :? I found it by accident. I had the hood up and was checking out differnt bulbs in my side markers and saw the light come on. DOH!!

I would suggest cutting _most_ of it to get rid of it, but leave a stub end where it disappears into that "cluster of tape" and just tape over the end of it, so you can retrieve it later on if it turns out to be something important after all. (e.g. if it turns out to be a wire running to a pin switch or shaker switch and you want to install an alarm, you can reuse that instead of doing the whole job over again)

Worst case scenario: It turns out to be Something Important that some idiot previous owner (all previous owners are idiots ) disconnected, you have a religious experience ("Oh My Gawd!"), but if you left a stub end accessible, you can reconnect it after all...

point well taken. One of these days i was planning on replacing all the black flex cable with red, maybe i'll find out its true meaning then.