Mk 8 Hood Strut replacement -ECS or Raceline?

[PanEuropean]

Would love to see the statistics on mortal injuries from hood strut failures.

Let's assume that you have your head under the hood, working on the engine, and the little aftermarket ball fails up at the top of the strut - or the OEM stud on the hood that the ball attaches to fails (as far as I know, it was not engineered for the purpose of supporting a strut). How heavy is the hood, and what is it going to do to your head when it falls?

Next, let's assume you are standing by the car with the hood up and your hand resting on the front fender with a portion of your hand inside the area that the hood closes onto. What happens to your hand if the hood drops suddenly? It's basically a guillotine.

Maybe I think this way because I spent a good part of my career in the engineering department of a large aircraft manufacturer, responsible for safety-related issues. I've seen enough 'smoking holes' with the grieving widows wailing nearby to cause me to look quite critically at modifications that are made without a full engineering assessment of strengths and possible failure modes.

Michael

 

[waynemad]

Would love to see the statistics on mortal injuries from hood strut failures.

Somewhat irrelevant. A life altering injury is FAR more possible. I’m missing the end of a finger from a hood so I was lucky

 

[waynemad]

Nice to see that some people on this site are total dickheads. We are here to discuss our cars and no one gives a crap about your “hero” past. I mean you CH47AV8R. So do us all a favour and FOAD

 

[tinmanjack]

@waynemad and @PanEuropean - As a 40-something year old IT professional with a degree in electrical engineering, I found this whole discussion to be fascinating. I appreciate the thought processes here, and really, I'm thinking that I'll just put this mod really low on my list of potentials. I work in a nuclear energy company and these types of safety discussions are a regular thing for us. It's really something to be mindful of when doing any mods, but especially for a safety critical component.

 

[Genegenie]

Had gas strut(s), forget if 1 or 2, on rear hatch of my Mk5 Golf both instantly fail, it dropped and hit me on the head, not hard but gave me 'something to think about'. Kinda faunny I guess on a level, but a dropped bonnet would cause some obv injury. Don't like the cheapo 'bonnet prop', also good the tip is yellow so easy to find but it's bit of a faff (hassle) locating it in the slot on the bonnet underside....

 

[PanEuropean]

It is entirely possible that VW removed the gas hood strut from the MK 8 cars due to safety concerns rather than as a cost-cutting measure.

Although I have not measured the difference in weight (and moment) between the MK 7 and MK 8 hood, I note that the MK 8 hood has a lot more hardware up at the front - two big heavy latches, which I suspect are there to either meet pedestrian protection requirements or to ensure that the hood does not get pushed back into the windshield in the event of a collision.

VW may have looked at the difference in weight & moment and decided that the safest thing to do was to provide a very robust (& reliable) metal rod rather than one or two gas struts. It's also possible that they have seen a pattern of injuries as a result of failure of 10+ year old gas struts on the MK 7 and decided they don't want to see the same problem in another 7 years time with the MK 8, and as a result, have elected to go back to the prop rod design that was used on previous Golf generations. Keep in mind that a gas strut (or, more likely, two gas struts) not only have to hold the hood open in calm air when inside a garage, but also in windy conditions outside or when stopped at the side of the road with large trucks passing close by at highway speeds.

Looking at it more pragmatically, what meaningful difference would a gas strut make? We only need to open the hood to refill washer fluid or check the oil level - and in both of those cases, the car will show us a message on the instrument cluster if we fail to check proactively and either level becomes low.

Michael

 

[SRGTD]

It is entirely possible that VW removed the gas hood strut from the MK 8 cars due to safety concerns rather than as a cost-cutting measure.

Although I have not measured the difference in weight (and moment) between the MK 7 and MK 8 hood, I note that the MK 8 hood has a lot more hardware up at the front - two big heavy latches, which I suspect are there to either meet pedestrian protection requirements or to ensure that the hood does not get pushed back into the windshield in the event of a collision.

VW may have looked at the difference in weight & moment and decided that the safest thing to do was to provide a very robust (& reliable) metal rod rather than one or two gas struts. It's also possible that they have seen a pattern of injuries as a result of failure of 10+ year old gas struts on the MK 7 and decided they don't want to see the same problem in another 7 years time with the MK 8, and as a result, have elected to go back to the prop rod design that was used on previous Golf generations. Keep in mind that a gas strut (or, more likely, two gas struts) not only have to hold the hood open in calm air when inside a garage, but also in windy conditions outside or when stopped at the side of the road with large trucks passing close by at highway speeds.

Looking at it more pragmatically, what meaningful difference would a gas strut make? We only need to open the hood to refill washer fluid or check the oil level - and in both of those cases, the car will show us a message on the instrument cluster if we fail to check proactively and either level becomes low.

Michael

I seem to remember reading around the time the mk8 Golf was launched that it was for safety reasons rather than a cost cutting measure.

My 2020 VW Polo GTI+ also has a metal rod to support the bonnet / hood when it’s open. It has the two bonnet / hood securing latches as well. I’ve never really felt it to be a hardship to have to manually prop the bonnet up when I open it to wipe around the edges after washing my car or when doing regular under bonnet fluid level checks.