Automatic Trunk Opening for Jaguar X-Type
It’s a pity that Jaguar didn’t make this a default feature. I’ve always dreamed of having the trunk open by itself. Very often, you need to open it when your hands are full.
I will explain how to do it in this article, but I should note right away that there are nuances.
Well, let me share my experience. In my car, I replaced the trunk struts with reinforced ones.
Any universal struts with a length of 300mm and a force of 600N will work. For example, Fenox A904001 or INSUPPA (I don’t know the exact part number). I ordered them on eBay based on the dimensions and with a force of 600 Newtons.
It’s better to look for ones with small metal brackets to avoid having to modify them. I had to modify the plastic brackets because they turned out to be too large, and the struts didn’t fit.
Simply swapping the brackets from the old struts didn’t work. They have completely different sizes and thread diameters.
So, I just filed down the corners on the new struts, and they fit like the originals.
Results. Thoughts.
The entire next day, I enjoyed this new feature, constantly opening the trunk 🙂
But it turned out that it’s not as simple as I would have liked.
Now, to the downsides
- The trunk is now very difficult to close.
- Increased stress on the hinges. While the hinges endure such abuse, I would say it’s on the edge.
- Struts sticking in compressed state.
- The stock pushers don’t have enough force. Let’s talk about that in a bit more detail.
Technically, when the trunk is closed, the struts are compressed and are almost parallel to the trunk lid’s surface. In this position, they have nowhere to move. As soon as the trunk is lifted even a few centimeters, the angle changes, and they start working.
The stock pushers play a key role here. Without them, the struts themselves would never be able to lift such a heavy trunk.
Nuances
And here we come to the main drawback: struts sticking in compressed state.
Literally the next morning, the trunk wouldn’t open.
But as soon as I opened the trunk once, they came back to life!
And I started experimenting.
I tried everything. I tried lubricating the struts with oil, adding various springs to the struts themselves, but it was all in vain.
I focused on the most important element: the pushers.
I prepared 3mm spacers for each pusher
So that they would fit snugly
Download 3D model
But that didn’t work either.
And so it went… Every day, I printed two new spacers, constantly adding a few millimeters. I installed them, left the car overnight, tested in the morning. But nothing changed.
I continued until I reached unreal sizes and intricate shapes. But nothing worked!
The spacer grew to 11mm
To avoid interfering with the struts, I added a cutout
Download 3D model
That didn’t help solving the sticking issue. And it didn’t make sense to increase the spacer any further because the trunk no longer closed tightly. Fighting that problem became my worst nightmare. A beast that I could not defeat. I decided to stop my numerous tries at that point and move on.
Conclusion
Yes, it works, but as I said – it has nuances.
And apart from sticking struts, the force you have to put to close the trunk is enormous. Of course I was happy to have this new feature. But in the end, I am not sure I would recommend installing it.
Would you install such struts in your car? Or maybe you have installed them already? How did you solve sticking problem then? Write in the comments.