When I got my new 84 Westfalia Last November the struts were gone so I replaced
them with one good strut from my wrecked van and one new one.  The shop
warned me that they would not guarantee struts unless they were bought
and installed in pairs.  This seemed to make sense at the time but when i
found that my hatch was decending again, I thought about it some more and 
concluded that installing one strut rather than two should have no effect on
strut performance.  Both struts are fully compressed when the door is closed
(which is most of the time) regardless of wether one of them is working or 
not, therefore installing a good strut with a bad strut cannot put any more 
strain than normal on the new strut.  I explained this to the guys in the shop
and they were not pleased and would not replace the strut.  They said it
was "obvious" that if one did not work it put more strain on the other.  Am
I missing something or is this a scam perpetrated by the strut manufacturers 
to sell more struts?

--
David Shepherdson Ph.D.
dshepher@ednet1.osl.or.gov
Portland, 
OR