Uprated boot lid gas struts for Berlingo

The drawback with fitting a permanent bike rack to the back of the Berlingo is that the gas struts that open (and hold open) the boot lid, will likely struggle.  When I originally fitted the Fiamma Carry Bike to the back of our 2009 Citroen Berlingo, it only had two bike rails. Whilst the boot gas struts still opened the boot, they did struggle – even more so in cold weather.

Recently, we purchased an extra rail for the bike rack – taking the total to three, along with the extra clamp. The downside to this addition was that the boot would now really struggle to open and remain open. After narrowly missing some painful head collisions with the slowly descending boot lid, it was time to get some new gas struts. My brother-in-law has a T4 Carravelle with the same bike rack fitted. He mentioned that he bought some uprated gas struts for his VW as he had the same problem. After a bit of Googling it transpired that whilst uprated gas struts were available for the VW, there was no such option for the Berlingo. At this point I figured that simply buying new struts would be enough as the current ones are getting on for 9 years old. However there was nothing lost in giving SGS Engineering a call. SGS very helpfully informed me that they could supply uprated (680N of pressure as opposed to standad 625N per strut – so extra 110N in total!) gas struts for the Berlingo, so I ordered a pair there and then.

Arriving the next day, the struts are very easy to fit. Clear, easy to follow instructions on how to remove the old struts and fit the new ones can be found on the SGS website. All you need is a flat head screwdriver and someone, or something to hold the boot fully (it must be fully, totally open!). If you don’t have the boot open as far as it can go, then you won’t be able to fit the new struts. It goes without saying, that the boot lid (with rack on) is very, very heavy. Do one at a time and take extra care.

With the new struts fitted, the boot opens like new and stays open! Can recommend this modification if you have a bike rack fitted to the back like we do.