From the first day that I owned my 1991 Volvo 245 (240 wagon), the struts have been sagging, unable to keep the tailgate up. Until last night, I used a garden hoe handle to prop the tailgate open — not very elegant.

I figured that it makes sense to buy tailgate struts new, priced at less than $11 each. I ended up regretting that purchase, for reasons that I explain here. For those same reasons, I do offer good, tested, guaranteed used Volvo 245 tailgate struts for sale.

The replacement struts did not automatically come with the little hip joint on the car side, or the slide clip for attachment on the tailgate side. I do sell those too.

I opened and propped up the tailgate, using the stick I’ve been using all along to hold it open.

On the tailgate side of the strut, I used a flat screwdriver to remove the clips. It occurred to me that putting on safety glasses might be prudent.

Then, I pried the bottom part of the strut off the rod that’s part of the tailgate. It was tempting to pry or hit the body of strut; but that might have damaged it, so I applied the sideways force to just the bottom part of the strut, the part that slides onto the rod.

After that, I twisted the strut so that it threaded off the hip joint on the car side of the strut.

Even if the replacement part had come with its own hip joint, I might still have left my old one on the car, because removing the strut from the hip joint is much easier than removing the hip joint from the car.

It was as simple as that.

To reinstall, I threaded the replacement strut back into the hip joint, pushed the strut onto the rod on the tailgate, and pushed the clip back on.