I need help .................

We bought a new 2014 Prius 3 about a month ago and have been really enjoying the car.

Yesterday, we had an unfortunate incident. The lift gate on the car was raised while it was parked in the garage and without closing it, I started to back it out. To make a long story short, the struts holding the lift gate - or tail gate - snapped and came apart from its anchor. The ends of both the struts are broken and cannot be remounted on the car.

I checked with a local dealer and they want $180+ for each strut which is ridiculous just for the part. So I have been trying to locate an after-market product without much luck because most don't even have an after-market product for a 2014 Prius. I assume the part is probably similar to that for other third generation Prius cars but I am not sure.

The OEM struts that came off were made by Stabilus and have the part numbers 68950-0W542 for the right strut and 68960-0W532 for the left strut. They have the characters 5R and 5L on the struts if that is any help. The ends of the struts that broke off are not screwed on to the struts otherwise those parts alone would probably have been sufficient.

Can anyone offer guidance as to where I might get these parts other than the dealers? I have checked out the obvious sources like eBay and Amazon without any luck. Any other suggestions would also be welcome. I doubt it would be covered by warranty for obvious reasons and I would rather not claim it through my insurance.

 

Thanks for all the responses.

It provides me with some guidance on how to proceed. Trying to decide whether I should shell out the extra for an OEM from Camelback Toyota posted by JC91006 which is certainly the best pricing I have found for an OEM replacement - as opposed to going with an after-market product.