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PS: I was pleasantly surprised at how much difference a £12 pair of replacement struts made to the car. In the few years he's had it the struts have obviously been weak (and the tailgate is surprisingly heavy) leading to his SWMBO having difficulty using it.
Now, once it's open by 6-12" the struts raise it effortlessly and allow for damped controlled closing - and holding it open while putting stuff in.
The new struts came without mounting brackets as some apparently do, but it was an easy job - even for your ham-fisted correspondent whose skills were learnt (and finished learning) on a MM1000.*
The old struts were R and L handed - the new ones had swivelling ends so would fit either side (just as well, I'm sure I would have failed to notice until it was too late). They have spring clips to fit on to the ball joint mounting and it is theoretically possible to partially pull out the spring clips for removal/refitting. My history with spring clips is not encouraging - they often end up much further away than you would have thought it possible they could have 'boinged' and even once found are deformed beyond re-use.
The struts were easy to pull off with gentle use of the the claw end of a hammer and easy to fit with a tap of the business end of same hammer.
*No job is without its complications, of course,in the chuckle Brothers diy world, and I highly recommend that you brace the tailgate up with timber or similar while doing this job. We didn't, and when I found out how to pull off the top mounting I unexpectedly realised how heavy the tailgate was when it fell on me but - worse - trapped the top half of the strut agains the pillar, causing a dent. So, as always, one job leads to another ...
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