When we came across the HatchLift a few months back, the first question that came to mind was, Why doesn’t every RV have these? What were manufacturers thinking all those years ago when they decided a little plastic hook above a storage compartment door was the best way to secure it open? These “little plastic hooks” have failed on us many times before. Any time the wind blows or someone moves in the trailer, down comes the door. After years of getting hit in the head by falling hatches, Garry Neff decided to take action and created the HatchLift.

It’s a simple idea, really: take a shock, normally used to hold up a car hood or the rear gate of an SUV, and mount it to the storage doors of an RV.

So we gave Garry at HatchLift a call, and he sent out everything we needed to cover all the doors on our Field Test Lab. Garry even walked us through the install (although it was pretty easy) and he says he’ll do the same for you. All said and done, the install took about 45 minutes on the first door and once we knew what we were doing, about 20 minutes for every door after.

The HatchLift comes in seven different sizes to accommodate any style door and retails for about $35.