Perhaps the ***** are different size. My Aston had 10mm *****. The hood struts came with an extra set of screw on ball connectors that were 10mm also.

Try putting them on upside down to see if it’s the plastic fitting. Or post a couple of pics. Mine fit perfect so I’m curious as to why yours don’t. Do both pop off?

 

The ends are significantly different in design as illustrated in photos earlier in this thread so I don't believe they are going to be interchangeable.

 

I tried putting them on upside down and the top one keeps popping off. Interestingly the left side strut is working fine, it is the right side one that won't stay on. I have tried 3 different Boxi struts and they are all doing the same thing on the right side.

 

Edit - did you try a little grease on the ball stud - just a tad so it pivots easily.

Strange... I had no problem with the trunk. Both the OE and the Boxi come with a 10MM connection. The end connector pivots when the hatch closes and opens. Perhaps your ball stud is too close to the edge and bumping it off during pivot? Is the ball stud tight? Is it worn? or perhaps it was installed with insufficient clearance for the nylon connector? If that's the case you might need to stick with the OE or source a replacement with a smaller metal connector. I have a feeling that being handmade the location of the actual drilled and tapped hole for each vehicle may be slightly different?





Anyone else who installed them have this issue?

 

The ratings are marked on the body of the strut just before the date of mfg. 250N for a door strut.

 

Hi guys

I also bought a set of the Boxi 6393 struts from Amazon to replace my Vantage V8 coupe's failing trunk struts. On the day of the install after the Boxi replacements were put on, I tested the trunk several times and it was perfect. Several days later I went to open the trunk and experienced the "popping off" issue 911MTB mentioned. I reinstalled the strut and made sure there was some grease on the ball to ensure it didn't bind. It didn't work at all and after the first time it popped off, it kept doing over and over no matter how I reinstalled the strut.

The issue I was seeing was just like 911MTB's and it was also popping off at the top. Mine was on the left strut though. So I tried the suggestion from MRCW and replaced the plastic ball mount end of the Boxi strut (tube end) with the original. It unscrewed easily and the threads were perfect between the old strut and the Boxi strut. I reinstalled the Boxi with the original ball mount and it didn't pop off after that. I tested 10+ times over an hour and it was perfect again. So I took the other strut off and replaced the plastic ball mount to make them match. Once you reinstall, make sure you remove any slack between the ball mount and the strut tube by turning the tube until the ball mount is snug against the top of the tube. This ensures there's no chance of any "slop" movement and potential pivoting that can cause the strut to pop off due to the threading of the ball mount.

Here's some pictures of what I did and how they look with the original ball mounts on the Boxi struts. Thanks BMW-North for the Boxi part number and MRCW for the idea to swap out the ball mounts!

Now I need to look for door struts... Did anyone find a good match for the Vantage door struts?

 

Glad you sorted that out. I like MRCW's ingenuity. I never had that issue and the Boxi connectors are still on. Mind you I haven't opened the boot in about 6 months so we'll see if I need to switch them in Spring.

 

Thanks for this, I'll give it a try tonight. Cheers!

 

Just bumping this thread to see if anyone ever came up with a good alternative for the door struts...

 

OK, a word of caution...... My car came with replacement struts from a company in Carlsbad CA https://www.liftsupportsdepot.com/ . The quality and price of their product is wonderful. It is designed specifically for our cars.They had replaced the hood, door and trunk struts on my 2010 Aston Martin Vantage Convertible with no real issues. Now, the trunk lifts were a little "spirited" and one needs to remember to "guide" the trunk with a retaining hand when pushing the release button.

I recently took the car into San Diego Aston Martin, where they changed the two rear taillights due to condensation issues. The tech pushed the button and did not "guide" the trunk lid and it launched him into outer space. After two orbits around the moon he landed back on earth and was seemingly alright. However, the car was not! The mount for the ball of the strut broke loose on the trunk. (not the lid) In order to fix it required major surgery with epoxy and other tricks. The caution is, be careful when you install new struts on the trunk.

On another note, the best Aston Martin dealership in the USA, San Diego AM stood behind me and paid for the repair. They are amazing in every way and they are the only place to buy an Aston Martin. Their Corporate Integrity always Prevails.

 

just finished installing the struts listed here on my 2007 vantage v8. this is their story....

left hatch strut replacement went according to plan... OTOH, the right rear strut consistently poped off on re-opening. it was clear that the female socket connectors on the struts are much larger than those on the OEM versions. this apparently created no problem except on the upper connector on the right-side hatch strut. it was clear that the upper connector was not seating properly and so i removed the original upper connector from the old worn out strut and screwed it on to the new one as noted in a preceding post. that fixed THAT problem. i did not think it was worth the bother, time-wise, aesthetically speaking, or functionally to swap the upper LEFT hatch strut as it was apparently working properly.

on the right side hood strut, there was again a fitment problem with the female connector. this time there was not even enough room to slide the lower female socket connector in position to even attempt to get it on the ball. unfortunately the OEM front strut connectors are plastic and DO NOT fit on the alternative front struts (which are designed similarly to the rear hatch ones), sooooo, i removed the other upper connector from the other rear OEM strut (it's metal) and it DID FIT the alternative front strut and there WAS enough room to mount it properly.

the rear alternative rear struts are strong enough. the alternative hood struts are, i think, markedly stronger than the OEM ones. of course i can't say for certain how strong they were when new because they were 13 years old when i bought the car. anyway there appears to be no danger of them luring me into bending the hood when closing it. although i've been presented with two unwelcome dash warnings about the hood not being closed properly after having it up and have had to reclose it twice now, i'm at this time confident that i may simply need to change my hood-closing technique.

the savings are negligible, all things considered, but aesthetically speaking the black struts look better than the OEM ones, IMO. you can save yourself a lot of time a trouble by NOT prying the clips open to the point where they stay open. it's best to pry them open while attempting to remove the socket from the ball and then let them close again as soon as the socket separates completely from the ball. getting the CLIP back in once it comes out too far can be, let's say...time consuming.

 

I thought I would chime in, as I got a V8 Vantage recently, and the hood and trunk struts are still the originals. The trunk stays open, but the hood doesn't. Thinking that the OEM pieces must have been too feeble, I went online and looked for a slightly stronger replacement (the original units are supposed to be 190N, 245N was the next common strength up). Unfortunately, Lift Supports Depot was out of stock, and the ones they were selling seemed to have a 22" fully extended length which would be a problem.

I ended up ordering these off Amazon, because they're so cheap I don't mind experimenting for public benefit: (2 pcs 17 inch Gas Props Lift Supports 55lbs/245 N per shock is the title in case the link goes down, I found it by searching "17 inch gas strut")

I didn't take a side-by-side shot, but the dimensions are almost identical to the OEM pieces in every way. Weight was 221 grams, a 50 gram increase over the OEM aluminum pieces. As far as the 55lb rating goes, I am not sure how true it is, but grabbing the strut body hard with both hands and pushing it into the ground, I couldn't get it to budge, and my hood pops open with shocking ferocity.

Fitment wise, the plastic female ends are slightly bigger than the OE Stabilus pieces, so fitting it to the ball on the body took a little thinking; The way to do it is to have the socket facing down, and rotate it over the ball joint to clear the fender. The clip should be completely removed first and then slipped through the slots in the front almost all the way, and tapped into place.


The blue lettering with the "Arana" logo doesn't look good, but I imagine some acetone will take it off if it bothers me.

 

Hopefully BMW North can correct this post at some point but anyone reading this, don't make the mistake I did and order struts with the wrong amount of force. ft-lbs is a unit of torque, but he thought lbs of force was a ft-lb and converted to Newton meters. 1lb = 4.44N. The correct amount of force is 122 POUNDS or 541 NEWTONS for the rear hatch.

They say measure twice, cut once, but I screwed up and bought some 160 newton gas struts that are useless. I knew I screwed up when I took the original part off and it weighed 221g vs 165g for the new part, but in hindsight it was obvious the hood is much lighter and those needed 45lb struts so that was definitely not going to work. Time to buy new ones (no-name $20 Amazon ones again, they're all the same thing).

After installing and reinstalling all hood and trunk struts 2x now, I have enough experience to say you absolutely do not need to swap over the smaller steel socket ends. The bulkier plastic ones are just as easy to work with on the rear of the car, and for the front hood you just need to rotate them into place (put the socket face down, push it towards the ball as you rotate it into position, do the reverse for removal). Use a towel to protect the paint from scratches in all cases.

 

Would you please post the Amazon part numbers you ordered for the front and rear?

Since you have done the engineering and actual installation it would be a great help!

Thanks .... Mark

 

Oh right, I put on the rears yesterday. I got a second set of "Vepagoo" this time rated at 150lbs. Surprisingly, they were the exact same 165 grams, so I managed to shed 112 grams compared to the OEM Aston Martin gas springs! The hatch now takes a bit of extra effort to close compared to most other OEM hatches I've seen.

The ones I have on my car:

• Front (17 inch, 55lbs "Arana"):
  Amazon
  Amazon
• Rear (12 inch, 150lbs "Vepagoo"):
  Amazon
  Amazon

If those don't exist by the time you're reading this, all I did was search "12 inch gas strut" and "17 inch gas strut" on Amazon. 10mm ball socket, either steel or plastic will fit but plastic is a tight fit at the front. I like the plastic socket ends because they won't gouge paint as badly if you accidentally bump it into something. Front minimum 50lbs, rear minimum 120lbs, those figures are for each single piece. Acetone takes the labelling off so that you have just a shiny black cylinder.