Hatchback hitting garage door solution!

So I wasn't happy with the fact that the hatchback on my '12 hits the garage door when you open it. People suggested rubber bumpers or using string or something to limit the height, but those seemed like hacks to me.

I did some research and found an online site where you can order just about any type of strut that you want (size, force, etc.) and figured out the specs for the struts on my Prius.

Here's the original height. You can see it sticking up a few inches above where the garage door would be when it's open (garage door rails in the background).






Ordered some struts that were 105 lbs. of force and almost 2" shorter. Here's a pic of the original and aftermarket parts:






Installation is super simple and takes like 10 minutes. All you need is a small flathead screwdriver. After installation you can see the height difference:






With the door open I now have a couple inches of clearance.






And a look at the part installed.



Not sure what this site's policy is on linking to online stores, but it was the first search result that came up on google of "hatchback struts". 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.

Specs on the '12 OEM struts:
~19 7/8" when hatcback open. Actual strut fully extended length is about 21", but it never gets that long installed. I ordered 18" struts.

~12.5" compressed. Totally estimated, it's almost impossible to actually measure the strut when the hatchback is closed. But you'll need to get a strut that is at least 12.5" compressed, shorter is OK. The ones I got were 12.1" compressed, and it looks like I might still have a 1/2"-1" extra it could compress.

103 lbs. of force. The ones I got were 105 lbs. of force and are fine, but because the angle is steeper, something like 110-120 lbs. is probably better.

 

My garage door is about 82" above the garage floor when open.

What you should do is measure the length of the piston that is visible when the hatchback is fully open. Then manually lower the hatchback to about the height you want, and re-measure the piston length. That will tell you how much shorter you want the whole strut to be. It's obviously not 1:1, because the piston angle is different than the height of the hatchback.

 

I bought them from autopartsbylou. I have no affiliation with them.

Part # on my receipt says 48125M10/6510M10, and you'll need 2 of them obviously.

I measured about 64" from ground to bottom of hatchback latch when open.

 

I'm not sure. But it's about 64" to the bottom of the hatch/latch when open now, so measure against yours and post back with the results.