Amazon or Ebay. I think I purchased my trunk shocks on Amazon... Under $26.

 

Got mine from:

http://www.liftsupportsdepot.com/

 

Yea, my trunk shocks were shot for about 2 years, maybe it was being lazy or just not investigating it. It was so bad that If you didn't hold the lid up, it would come slamming down and if your arm or head was in the way, you might not have it any more. My wife would not of put anything in my trunk because of it....

Maybe that is the reason why on my 2001 LS the trunk looks brand new...

$26 on ebay, no more than 10 min swapping them out (very easy), works perfect now, smooth and stays up.....I wish I did it a lot sooner...

 

Hood shocks finally gave up the ghost, hood came crashing down when I hung my lightweight shop light on it recently. Glad my head and/or hands were not in the way.

I ordered some strong arm replacement gas shocks from Amazon this weekend for $40 delivered. Will report back results. Based on previous posts on these it should be an easy and relatively inexpensive fix. Want to get it done this week and also change oil and maybe drain and fill on my ATF - 65k miles at this point.

 

I purchased two "StrongArm 6236" from Amazon.com back in 2011 and they are still going strong. In fact, if I lift my hood half way up and let go, the StrongArm will take it the rest of the way up. Another neat feature is when the hood reaches about 90% open, the StrongArm actually slows the lift to a gentle stop.

 

I just purchased 2 hood shocks (strongarm) from amazon 5 minutes ago. They are offering $5 off with the purchase of 2 until November 30, 2014. Price for 2 was $31 with shipping.

 

Thanks to this thread just replaced the hood struts with the Strong Arm 6236 via Amazon; less than $40 (which included shipping and CA tax...). On the wife's LS430 (and soon to be mine once she finds a suitable LS460).

Other than dropping the open ended wrench behind the battery when trying to take off the old strut (which took some patience to retrieve) it was really straight forward.

The OEM struts with the ball joint "built in" with the unit was similar to my SC300 trunk lifts. My guess is this was more "efficient" for Toyota/Lexus during assembly but not that great a design for replacement.

The new ones when or if they go will pop off and be easily replaced now....

 

Hey guys, I just got my kit to replace the old ones that are shot. Problem is installation:

How do I take out the old ones? The new set (Monroe from RockAuto) didn't have any bolts with it, so I will have to install them on the existing ones. The original arms won't seem to get out of the ball though