Hatchback hitting garage door solution!

"Price $60 shipped. I'm sure the quality is quite a bit lower than the OEM struts. OEMs probably last 10+ years, hopefully these will last at least 5. But for $60 and a very elegant/clean solution, I'm pretty happy with it so far."

I needed new struts by the time my '06 was five years old and 50K miles. The dealer's retail price was $127 EACH, and $21.60 labor to install both of them. Total bill was $295.43, covered by the Platinum Extended Warranty. Only claim I ever filed under that warranty, so Toyota was still way ahead!
So your price was much better. I will keep this in mind with my PiP for any needed replacements, although my garage door height is just fine for now.

 

I just read this on the McMaster-Carr website:

Note: All gas springs contain pressurized nitrogen gas as well as hydraulic fluid that lubricates the seal and provides slam-resistant damping at the end of the stroke. To avoid loss of force, you should store and install gas springs rod-end down.

For our application, the way you have them installed, where the rod end would be down (most of the time) in the compressed position, is correct. Right?

 

I also use a blanket beetween the hatch and the garage door, in that position I have hit my head on the hatch more than once (I'm a slow learner).

 

The biggest problem with that is remembering to put the blanket on the hatch in the first place. Our Prius hatch (spoiler) has even hit some low ceiling support members in parking garages.

 

a controlled shorter throw for limiting hatch opening distance
good one
brilliant

 

Little bit of wire worked well for me, the kind of stuff you'd use on a dog lead

 

my 08 didn't go as high, but the 12 spoiler hits the door so i glued a 2" thick piece of foam rubber to the door with liquid nails and now it makes a nice soft landing up there.

 

I have a Gen III prius. Its the 2008 grand touring version which unfortunately has the large spoiler on it. Height of Garage is 82 inches. Height of spoiler with hatch open is slightly higher. Recently my wife opened the garage door with the hatch open and it ripped the spoiler off . I know this has happened to many. But for me its the third time (Yes, I did it twice before this). I don't want to get it fixed unless I come up with a solution to ensure that it never happens again. I've read the post above about using shorter struts so that it doesn't open as far. Great idea. But in my case, if I lower it enough to avoid hitting the garage it won't be high enough for me to avoid hitting my head against the hatch. So would only replace one headache with another.
Does anyone know if its possible to replace the big spoiler on the grand touring version with the smaller spoiler on from the regular version? I'm guessing not.
Any other ideas for avoiding this oft repeated mishap? (yes being careful is an option but not very foolproof in my case).

 

Heads heal, and headaches go away. Damage to spoilers and other auto parts don't... I would go with the shorter struts.

After hitting your head a few times, you'll learn to duck.

 

After reading your post, we measured our 2006 Prius against our garage door, and ended up getting precisely the same lift struts you did from that source. Their website is a little hard to navigate, but the phone support person found us the right part for what we wanted. I think if you're looking on their website, it may be the 18.02" instead of exactly 18" to find that strut. Anyway, the old ones were pretty easy to take off, though having a spotter holding the hatchback seems very key. We swapped the struts one at a time, and when the second one released, it was more surprising of a drop than the first, so have your spotter ready for it. It was also a bit of a learning experience to realize that the new ones have to "pop" onto the balls before the little metal pins could go through and lock them in. (I want to call those "cotter pins", but I imagine that's not precisely correct)

Anyway, thanks for the great solution to the hatchback hitting the garage door!

 

Zhutton is right. Make a limiting strap. You can add a hook to one side so you can have it open all the way when needed.

 

I must be a slow learner, bumped my head again yesterday! I just use a towel placed on the spoiler when I lift my liftback in the garage.

 

Carpet the garage door? I'm sure you've got some off cuts from that floral 80's design

 

Very nice solution!

I have a funny yet a bit shameful story about my rear wing. About a week after purchase I had my hatch open and opened the garage door which hit the bottom of the wing and the door kept pushing it till I heard a loud cracking sound before I could run to hit the button...sadly, after I got the garage door down and closed my hatch, I immediately saw that the wing was bent upward by about an inch and would wobble up and down...I was more than a little upset as you can imagine. So, the next time I was at my dealership I told the service rep that there "seemed" to be something "wrong" with my rear wing. Next thing I know the guy comes up to me with a piece of paper and says the lady at the desk will have my keys and thanked me. I was so stupefied that I didn't say anything other than thanks and walked up to the cashier lady. She then prints out a piece of paper, asks me to sign it and gives me my keys. I should have just walked away but my curiosity got the best of me so I asked her about the rear wing. She looks at the printed paper and says it was replaced at no charge to me as a defective factory item. Then, the service rep I was working with walks by and the lady calls him over for additional details!!! I was like, noooooo! He came over and said something along the lines of "the plastics on the inside were all chewed up, but we replaced it for you as we had the part in stock." I left as soon as I could and never looked back! haha

 

Thank you. This was very helpful.

 

Just got my 2010 prius iii a couple weeks ago.

The hatch is really heavy (lots of glass) and i have to push the hatch all the way up and hold it there for a couple seconds until it will "hold itself up" I'm thinking that after 4 years and 45K miles the struts are old and tired... also when I go to close it, it really wants to slam...which leads me to believe that the pressure has dropped. Of course it is wintertime so things might change in the summer time.

Are other prius hatches the same, IE have to hold them up briefly to get them to stay up, or that the slam down?