Hood & Tailgate Lift Supports

Gas struts don't fail all at once — they fade. One day the hood needs a nudge, the next it won't stay up at all, and you're wedging a broom handle under it and hoping. Replacement lift supports for hoods, trunks, tailgates and hatches: 1,178 parts, cross-referenced to OEM numbers, shipped the same day.

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Sound familiar?

These are the ways a failing gas strut announces itself. If any of them is your morning, the part costs less than the aggravation.

Car hood propped open with a wooden stick after the hood lift supports failed
Your current lift support. A stick, a jack handle, a length of pipe — whatever was in the garage. It works right up until it doesn't.
Car hood resting on a man's back while he works, hood lift support no longer holding it up
Hands-free. Technically. You lean in to check the oil, the hood creeps down, and you find out how heavy sheet metal really is.
SUV tailgate sagging onto a man's shoulder as he loads a box, failed tailgate lift supports
The factory strut, eight winters in. It opens fine, holds for a minute, then quietly closes on your head while you're loading the dog in.

Why gas struts fail

A lift support is a sealed cylinder of pressurised nitrogen behind a piston. The gas does the lifting; a seal keeps it in. Over years of heat cycling that seal hardens and the gas leaks past it a little at a time. Nothing breaks — the strut simply gets weaker until it can no longer hold the weight it was sized for.

That's why failure feels gradual rather than sudden. It also means cold weather makes it worse before it gets bad: gas contracts as temperature drops, so a strut that just about copes in August gives up in December. If your hood started sagging when the weather turned, it was already marginal.

How to tell it's time

  • It won't hold at full height. Opens, then drifts down on its own within a minute or two.
  • It needs a push. Won't rise on its own from half-open and has to be pushed the last stretch.
  • It's worse when cold. Fine in summer, useless on a frosty morning — classic gas loss.
  • Oily film on the shaft. Visible weeping around the rod means the seal has gone.
  • One side lags. On a two-strut hood or hatch, one lifts and the other trails.
  • It thumps at the top. No cushioning at the end of travel; the damping is spent.

Replace them in pairs

If your hood or tailgate uses two struts, replace both even when only one has obviously failed. They were installed the same day and have heat-cycled the same number of times, so the second is rarely far behind. More importantly, a strong strut paired with a weak one loads the hinge unevenly and twists the panel every time it opens — which is how a $20 job turns into an alignment problem. Most of our lift supports are sold as matched pairs for exactly this reason.

Finding the one that fits

Lift supports are sized to a specific panel weight and mounting geometry, so close enough genuinely isn't. Two things pin it down exactly.

  • The number on the old strut. Nearly every gas strut carries a part number stamped or printed on the cylinder body. Every listing here is cross-referenced to the original equipment and common interchange numbers, so you can match that number directly rather than guessing from a photo.
  • Extended length and force. Where no number survives, measure the strut fully extended from eyelet centre to eyelet centre, and check the force rating printed on the body in newtons. Our listings state both, along with the end-fitting type.

Also check position — hood, trunk, tailgate, hatch and rear window struts are different parts on the same vehicle, and several models use a different strut for aluminium hoods than for steel.

Why buy from us

We manufacture the BOXI line ourselves rather than reselling someone else's, and we ship direct from our warehouse in Montclair, California. Orders placed before 1:00 PM Pacific go out the same day, with 3–5 business day transit. Every strut is engineered to meet or exceed the original equipment specification, and returns are open for 30 days on uninstalled parts.

Find your lift support

1,178 hood, trunk, tailgate and hatch struts, searchable by year, make and model.

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