Xc60 manual rear hatch shocks
 

Can someone tell me how strong should the rear hatch lifters be? Like, if I open the hatch and begin to lift it, should they lift by themselves at a certain point (and if so, where approximately) or should I always be helping them up?

Also, when it arrives to the top, if I push it with hands it will go a bit more. Should the struts lift if all the way to the top, or is “5 cm under the top” normal behaviour? This means a lot to me since I’m 194cm and every centimeter counts (I know, that’s what she said) since I keep banging my head on the door.

I even managed to buy “heavy duty” struts, and that’s not the solution to anything because it surely does lift the hatch without any help from me, but it launches it so far up that it bangs, quite strongly, and I need considerable muscle to bring it down.

So I’m trying to find out if my current struts are ok or do I need a new set. There are 600N, 610N, 620N and 630N as far as lifting force goes, and the heavy duty ones I tried were 720, so that’s waay to strong.

I have very recently replaced both rear struts after one of the originals failed and I had to prop the tailgate up. I did notice that before the failure I was needing to push the tailgate up to the fully open position and it was as you stated it needed assistance to rise the last few centimetres. The new ones make the tailgate open to the full clearance without needing a final lift to fully open. I need to gently lift the tailgate to about the height of the rear lights and then the tailgate rises on its own to the fully open position. The new struts were 610 nm.

Ehh... I always bump my head in it, still haven't replaced mine. Yes I know I will have to eventually but I'm kinda lazy for that now :p

Mine doesn't rise at all by itself, I have to follow it up all the way. Plus the last few cm.
Well, I'll be ordering some new ones...

Thanx for replies guys!