This morning I lifted my 2010 prius hatchback door and it slowly kept coming down. It will not stay up when opened. The last time I used the door was 12 days ago without any issue. Has this ever happened to anyone? Other info that may or may not be useful: I got an oil change 3 weeks ago and about a month ago I had to repair the gas cap as it was stuck. A year ago the body (door, gas cap area, and trunk) of the back driverside was replaced due to an accident.
Welcome to Prius Chat. Sounds like the hatch struts have failed or lost the gas in them. Not a hard thing to swap out. Good luck and keep us posted.
It's not a common problem on Prii necessarily, but lift struts failing on a 10 year old car is not uncommon. +1
I ordered some from ebay for our 08 Odyssey. The ones I received looked exactly like the original ones that I removed but the pressure in the shocks must be higher because the tailgate is harder to push closed now. No problem holding the tailgate open just more force than the originals required to close it. Just because a vendor says that a part is a direct replacement doesn't mean that it will work exactly the same as the original.
Eight years ago, we bought an 05 Explorer. About a year later, I replaced the hood lifts in “an abundance of caution” after the hood fell once, just fast enough that it touched my head. The replacements failed completely in 18 months. Now I have an 18 inch long piece of 1/2 PVC pipe that I use as a prop rod. I remind myself of that every time I thing about adding the lift supports that are available aftermarket for the Prius hood. LoL
