[Amedeo]

Hi,

Does anyone know what the cause could be of my 2.5 TDI '04 tailgate suddenly stops staying up when opened? Was fine yesterday but today tailgate door is not held in up position anymore. Have to support it with my head while I put/take things out of boot!

Any Help really appreciated.

Thank you

Amedeo

 

[DenverBill]

Is it quite a bit colder today vs. yesterday?

 

[Amedeo]

Yes [?]

 

[DenverBill]

The internal pressure of the strut varies inversely with the ambient temperature. That is, in cold weather there is not enough pressure to hold up the tailgate, though the struts appear fine when it is warm. Just an early warning that you are going to need new ones soon.

 

[Amedeo]

Oh dear that sounds expensive....
amazing that they should fail immediately...like a switch...no degradation at all...I find that odd

 

[DenverBill]

amazing that they should fail immediately...no degradation

They didn't fail immediately, they just showed their six years of wear when exposed to the current cold. Go to the General Maintenance and Repair section on this forum and look for a post three days ago by 4XMotion titled "Strutting My Stuff!LOL." Notice the photo of the strut on your Treg and the larger strut that has superceded it; VW's way of dealing with some of the loss of pressure when they wear.

 

[Amedeo]

I AM SOOOO GRATEFUL

Will give it a go in fixing it myself

Thank you to DenverBill and 4XMotion

Amedeo

 

[OILSLURPER]

Have to support it with my head while I put/take things out of boot!

If the glass door is the same, as in it will not hold in the 'up' position, then I suspect you have a set of dud struts. Mine failed without warning at 37,000klms. Just had them replaced out of warranty under the "Goodwill assistance program" they offer us here.

 

[Amphicar770]

In recent days mine have also shown signs of age (2004). It does not fall down but I bumped my head twice after realizing that, er, it does not go up quite as much as it used to!

I'll bet that we start seeing a lot of reported issues this winter. Looks like the '04 Treg trunk struts are reaching their planned obsolesence point.

 

[Jimbuffalo]

Model year 05 ain't too far behind....

 

[jboysen]

Had both the door and glass struts replaced on my '05 a couple of months ago. As I recall it was an $800+ job at the dealer (covered under warranty) due to labor costs. Apparently the struts are a bit buried....

 

[pilottim]

Yup - my early build '05 had struts replaced about a month ago. Dealer said it was at least an $800 job. VW's authorized repair is to completely remove the headliner, that's where the labor costs come in - lots of trim to remove and replace. If you have small hands and a lot of patience, you can replace the struts without removing the entire headliner. I have noticed the new struts are MUCH stronger. You only have to open the tailgate a little bit before it swings up. And you have to give it a good shove to close.

A tip from another thread to maximize strut life - open the tailgate at least half way before letting the struts take over.

 

[vtrevellyan]

If you folks had been living with Vanagons like I have you would be familar with 1. holding the hatch lid up with your head and or 2. Getting floored by the hatch as it dropped on you like a WW2 Stuka. The fix is easy with a strut replacement and as a point of interest the Vanagons had two strengths of strut. The factory put a weaker one on one side and a stronger one on the other. If you got the wrong replacement strut it either would not stay up or you had to hang on the hatch to get it to go down.

 

[Amedeo]

Took my late 04 Touareg to a main dealer near me to investigate cause of tailgate falling down and confirmed the strutts had failed [no surprise there!]

The service manager said they would be looking to do a good will gesture which was a nice surprise but today received a telephone call from head office saying that they would not do that at all and I would need to pay for all costs. I wasn't looking for anything free but an admision that the original strutts were under designed as the replacements are much more robust and that VW should have gone some way to accpect this. Am really dissapointed they took this stance on such a prestigious car and I will seriously consider not buying another VW.
A falling tailgate is not common when designed with appropriate struts and they should have gone some way in accepting responsibility.

 

[nickm]

Dealers are making a killing charging $800 for this...I did mine in an afternoon with a total of $100 in parts. There is a DIY that a few of us have posted to showing you exactly how to do it.

Its really not a difficult job at all.

 

[Amedeo]

Hi nickm

Tried to find instructions on how to do this on this forum but can't find any. Can you point me in the right direction?

Thanks

Amedeo

 

[nickm]

here you go:
http://www.clubtouareg.com/forums/f73/how-to-replace-rear-hatch-struts-45059.html

 

[Amedeo]

Thank you !