Sylvester
Member
Since I've had my A2, it's been over 4 years, the boot had never closed smoothly, it always needed a firm slam. As I've had to sort other things out in the mean time, it was never pritoty and after a while I just learnt to live with it.
Fast forward to couple of weeks ago, I'd dediced it's time to sort this out, along with other minor things, so I'd ordered the recommended boot struts, as I thought they were the main issue.
I'd greased and cleaned the latch, it'd been working fine, but definitely smoother now. After following @mtl's YouTube tutorial the struts swap went good, those small clips can be a handful to put on though. The boots struts actually so strong now, they shake the car a tad when fully opened, I hope that settles over time. The boot still didn't close nicely though, actually got much worse, at some point didn't even want to shut at all.
After checking the forum and trying to adjust the bumper stops to no avil, swapping the old struts back again also didn't work, I've put the new ones back on and started to think why it still doesn't work. Then it hit me.
I saw marks on the catching latch, which means the boot latch has been hitting it for a long time, so could it'd have pushed it out of alignment?
Pushing down the flap door, also cleaned behind that, I saw 1 bolt on each side, which turned out to be holding the catching latch. I loosed both sides, access is very limited with rear panel in place but doable, carefully pulling them up by ~0.5cm (5mm), right side a bit less just in case, then tightening the bolts again, I then gently closed the boot... It locked so smoothly, I almost started clapping Literally what I see on new cars!
Upon checking the right side was a tiny bit lose compered to left one, I've aligned that side as equal up as I could, then closed the boot again, and it felt like squashing butter with my fingers...Both sides sit nice and solid on the seals now.
No more force closes with many tries, or worries I might damaged something behind the panel with the strong pushes, hopefully all is good there, just smooth and solid close. I know it'd have been a shorter story, but it literally made my day. Cheers.
Fast forward to couple of weeks ago, I'd dediced it's time to sort this out, along with other minor things, so I'd ordered the recommended boot struts, as I thought they were the main issue.
I'd greased and cleaned the latch, it'd been working fine, but definitely smoother now. After following @mtl's YouTube tutorial the struts swap went good, those small clips can be a handful to put on though. The boots struts actually so strong now, they shake the car a tad when fully opened, I hope that settles over time. The boot still didn't close nicely though, actually got much worse, at some point didn't even want to shut at all.
After checking the forum and trying to adjust the bumper stops to no avil, swapping the old struts back again also didn't work, I've put the new ones back on and started to think why it still doesn't work. Then it hit me.
I saw marks on the catching latch, which means the boot latch has been hitting it for a long time, so could it'd have pushed it out of alignment?
Pushing down the flap door, also cleaned behind that, I saw 1 bolt on each side, which turned out to be holding the catching latch. I loosed both sides, access is very limited with rear panel in place but doable, carefully pulling them up by ~0.5cm (5mm), right side a bit less just in case, then tightening the bolts again, I then gently closed the boot... It locked so smoothly, I almost started clapping Literally what I see on new cars!
Upon checking the right side was a tiny bit lose compered to left one, I've aligned that side as equal up as I could, then closed the boot again, and it felt like squashing butter with my fingers...Both sides sit nice and solid on the seals now.
No more force closes with many tries, or worries I might damaged something behind the panel with the strong pushes, hopefully all is good there, just smooth and solid close. I know it'd have been a shorter story, but it literally made my day. Cheers.
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