Actually the heavy duty ones sold by Bus Depot aren't all that hard to
open/close.... they were REALLY hard at first, but the soften up quite a bit
after only a small amount of use.... If you want to have a bike rack on the
back hatch they are the way to go because the stock ones allow a hatch with
weight on it to come crashing down when you close it.

Bill

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Dorm" <mark_hb@hotmail.com>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2000 6:31 PM
Subject: Re: rear hatch struts, color + friday

> So has anyone tried to use one of the extra heavy Bus Depot has with one
of
> his regular hatch struts (in combinatioin)...????
>
>
>
> > >In some year I don't
> > >remember,
> > > VW changed the struts so one side is stronger than the other so the
> >hatch
> > > will stay in different positions or not go all the way up so shorter
> >people
> > > can reach it.
>
> >...when i bought a pair of struts from
> >canadian  tire last month, they had to order them from two different
> >stores,
> >that had them in stock. When I decided to put them  on,  I noticed that
one
> >was much smaller than the other...brought it back to exchange, so I could
> >have two hard ones... now someone is telling me that they should be
> >different ???
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