Helper springs for rear tailgate or liftback, hatch.

As title. The 2010 model purchased this year 2023, has had a darn heavy tailgate, and new gas struts did not help much. Saw many ‘helper springs’ that are strong, squat things, square-wire and bright colours, meant for machines of various sorts eg presses.

I experimented, and came up with an inner and outer creation. 2mm spring wire I think the biggest one, the outer is, and it’s just over 100mm long. The inner is around 90mm long and is perhaps 1.2mm wire.

Outer spring dims: 20mm OD, 2mm wire, 108mm unsprung length, min length 38mm coil-bound.
I think the spec sheet said it was 3Nmm.
Inner spring dims: 12mm OD, 1.2mm wire, 90mm unsprung length, min length maybe 30mm coil-bound.

See pics. They are just about fully coil-bound ie squashed, when the trunk/boot/tailgate is fully closed and locked. The benefit of these thin-wired springs, is they can be 100mm long, and provide spring assistance due to the mechanics of it all, until the hatch or tailgate is almost half-way open, a point at which mine will actually stand without help now.

It slammed before, when shutting, and was almost too heavy for the better half and offspring to lift up when closed. Now, by my calcs, between 30 to 45 kg is being held by the springs. My 2c worth is the struts are in the wrong location positions ie the anchor points are maybe not optimal. But the car’s tail is huge, and gapes wide as the ocean when open.

Anyway, this is a highly-rated mod by me, because quite simply it costs about 10 UK pounds, probably cost you less, and we use tailgates almost every time we use the car. The daily-ness of it, gives it a high improvement score! Pics taken, but I have no idea how to upload here, and free storage took a dive some years ago - ah, ‘hosting’ they called it. Take care all. (Hope the server swap goes smoothly.)

 

Okay, I was following out of date instructions for pics uploads…here should be the thumbnails of the pics, for you to tap on, and see the full pics. I have to hit the ‘photo’ landscape icon up top and then tap ‘upload a file’ at the bottom of the dialogue box that then appears, get to my ipad photo albums from there. Sorry about that, here they are, nothing amazing. I very much applaud the ‘push-button’ rear opening, that is the safest and best idea, apart from shifting cargo maybe, tapping it, but there’s a bezel and that’s not a criticism.

Someone asked where I got my rather poor struts from. It’s a place in the UK called ‘SGS engineering’, and they have some not so good stuff, which I think this falls under - I already mentioned it, but my main gripe is, they were specifically bought at twice the price of most struts, to be better. ‘Nitrolift’ they say on them. Nitrogen isn’t what it used to be? ! Thanks for looking.

 

Ok, pics in my entry now that I added, sorry about that.

 

Compared to genuine Toyota struts for the liftback, based on 85% of parts queries I have had with dealerships, it seems likely to me, the Toyota ones would be costly. Mine were double the price of cheap ones,at £20 each. I sense where you’re going of course. And seeking alternative sources of genuine Toyota parts is a lesson too - I tried to buy from ‘toyotapartsdeal.com’ in the US, a couple of,brake plates for the rear. 6 months later, I have neither the parts nor the money back…Toyotapartsdeal say i need to go to fedex crossborders, fedex head office say fedexcrossborders only talk with actual customers of theirs…ie toyotapartsdeal.

£132. They delivered it to an address, some porch, in CA. Patently, this is not my UK address, and how ‘crossborders’ would send a parcel to a US address, is unclear to me - why would homeland/domestic US fedex, get invo,ved at all? So toyotapartsdeal, just keeping flipping me, after a dozen emails, they still say go to fedex, and i keep telling them…anyway, I digress.

Buying genuine parts from non-dealers, hasn’t worked out is the lesson. So I am stuck with dealer prices for Toyota parts, and I wouldn’t even dream of calling to ask the price of rear hatch struts. Maybe I should. Maybe this is that ‘one time’ the dealer is cheaper or comparable, it’s a point.

 

Ah - you are in Florida…warm. Mine work when it’s warm. It’s usually not. ! Jealous of warm.