Hi,

When I'm closing my estate's tailgate, I have to hold it until the gap is no more than about 3" wide, and then let it fall shut, or otherwise it slams so loud that I'm actually worried about the glass falling out. Is this normal, or are my struts somehow weak? It opens up and stays up fine.

Thanks for advice/sharing experience.

Sheldon

My old car was like that. It may be that the struts are wearing a bit but I think the tailgate is just heavy.

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A bit of both I think; the struts on mine are probably about 11YO (registered 1/9/02), and it closes "positively" but not so much so that I'm worried about breaking anything. It needs a bit of lifting to get it going up when opening it though.

Struts on the way out, not too expensive or difficult to fix so long as you have a helping hand! 

Same here.

Struts on the way out, not too expensive or difficult to fix so long as you have a helping hand!

The original ones are hideously expensive (GBP 35 per one), and there are many no-name alternatives for GBP 5. For hatchbacks, there are also Magneti Marelli struts for about GBP 15, do you know about anything like that for estates? I couldn't find anything.