Just to chime in here.

The Vanagon comes with two different hatch struts...one is medium strength and one is heavy duty.  They do this to make it easy for people to pull the hatch down.

I never use the medium strength because they do very little.  I put too of the heavy duty ones on my Vanagon ten years ago and they still hold strong.  I do not have a rack on my hatch.  

My point is...I am not sure what BD is selling...either way...never use the original combination.  I will make it a little tougher to pull down the hatch, but they will last a long time.

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 20, 2012, at 19:01, Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> The parts may be available elsewhere, but revise your expectations on the strength.  We bought a pair of the "strong" struts several years ago and they still work well but never held the '87's hatch open with bikes on the Bones hatch-mounted rack.  The rack by itself, yes, but not with bikes.  That can be a lot of extra weight to support.
> 
> Stephen
> 
> --- On Tue, 11/20/12, Harry Hoffman <hhoffman@IP-SOLUTIONS.NET> wrote:
> 
> From: Harry Hoffman <hhoffman@IP-SOLUTIONS.NET>
> Subject: Rear hatch struts  - heavy duty
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Date: Tuesday, November 20, 2012, 6:45 PM
> 
> Hi All,
> Bus Depot offers a set of heavy duty rear struts. They supposedly can hold open the hatch even with a bike rack and bikes.
> Unfortunately they are on back order for 2-3 months.
> Anyone know a alternate vendor?
> 
> Cheers,
> Harry