Lift supports installed

Maximum package, minimum product

My new lift supports were purchased from RockAuto and shipped to me thusly.  Seems like a lot of box for not that much product.  Padding?  The padding was placed atop of the product, so it contributed to the protection of just 1/6 of the product's surface area.  The cardboard box did the rest of the work in terms of keeping things from arriving crushed.

Smurf entrails

Seeing such a wasteful way to ship products reminds me of how much it must cost to be more efficient.  Guessing that warehouse guys at RockAuto fulfilment have just a few sizes of boxes, stocking more would be more expensive than the waste of a 1/10th filled, but larger box.  RockAuto seems to be the greatest offender in the box to product waste, with Amazon being a close second.

Getting to the installation...

Old versus new

Recall, with my trip down VIN lane, I needed to order a certain type of lift support based on the build date of my car.  Before removing the old lift support, I did a side-by-side check to see if I ordered the right part.  Yeah!  I did order correctly, so on to the installation.

Removing the lift gates was easy enough, at the ball joints where they attach to the vehicle, use a screwdriver as a lever to remove the part by popping it off the ball joint.  Replace with other part by pushing it over the ball joint. Repeat the task for the other side of the car.  Total time: 15 minutes!

Connection ball joint

What I didn't expect was the sudden increase of weight when I removed the failing part, as I was supporting it with my non-prying hand.  While the old lift support wasn't doing much, it was doing something.  I shudder to think what would happen to one's head in the event of a suddenly failing lift support.  I would hurt, that's for sure.

This being done makes the Freestyle a much more worthy "grocery getter", before this fix I needed a helper to hold the tailgate or support it on my back when loading/unloading.

There's still the issue with the trim being ajar and interfering with the smooth operation of my newly functioning lift gate, we'll cover that in an upcoming post.