Another tale of misfortune - can anyone decipher what's gone wrong? :
Having returned home this evening to find much of my fencing wrecked by the wind, I proceeded to investigate a rear bulb failure on the car. When I tried to open the boot, which was fine last time I used it, I found that the lid was stuck closed.
Seeing no obvious alternative, I managed to lift the lid halfway using moderate force, at which point it jammed in position and would not open or close. I stuck my head inside to investigate and found that the gas struts were jammed and this was jamming the lid. I took out the rear seat bolsters and found that both struts had broken their plastic retaining clips and had then become trapped in the panelwork. To remove them I had to disconnect the body of both struts from the bootlid and angle them so they could be removed.
Because both struts have broken clips and they are moulded onto the piston, I now found myself needing 2 replacements, and I can't come up with a plausible explanation as to why it happened and why both struts were affected. To summarize:
- Bootlid stuck
- Forced it upwards, breaking both support strut piston clips at the anchor points on the back or the rear seat.
- Both struts then took on an unnatural angle, causing them to jam in the holes in the back of the boot panelling and lock the bootlid in position.
- Had to disconnect both strut piston chambers from the bootlid hinges in order to extract them and free the bootlid.
Any ideas what happened here? I can accept that one strut may seize and break it's clip when forced, but surely not both at once?!
BTW, both struts are working normally now I've taken them off. I can compress each one by hand and they expand again quite freely.
Stu