The engine cover supports are the original ones and they started to fail about 5 years ago. It had got to the point where they would only hold the engine cover up if they were hot, so they needed to be replaced. 

This is the left hand one. As you can see it's an easy job to swap them over. You unbolt them; there's no need to pop the end off the ball joint:

These are the replacements. Not OEM but directly equivalent.

And back on the car:

Both sides done, obviously!