Who needs fancy coilovers?

MikeHiow

MikeHiow

MikeHiow

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Joined
26 Oct 2004
Posts
7,540
Location
Isle of Wight
or even lowering springs for that matter :D

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Is that the actual spring seat broken off? Is the coil broken too?
I'm trying to guess the car- obviously Ford, I'm thinking either Focus or Mondeo, def not older escort etc.
 
That happened to my friend's Corsa whilst away in Wales. Managed to get the suspension to sit on the remaining part of the spring seat for the drive home, and took it very easy! Luckily I was on my bike, so wasn't in the car but driving back in a fully loaded car with a broken suspension is damn risky..
 
Ignore them, Motors seems to have been over run by the boring brigade as of late. I like seeing things broken, snapped, damaged... hence why I own British cars. :p

Looks nasty!
 
Nice.

On a similar note, a friends mum's Skoda Felicia passes an MOT a little while back. A week later the spring burst through the bottom spring plate on the shock and took a chunk of tyre out and well, you can imagine the smell and heat generated from the friction.

Upon closer inspection the cause was rust. Rust that was clear as day (nearly as clear as the day light coming through the spring plate on both front shock absorbers) and the MOT inspector had made no note of.

Scary the amount of pressure in those springs. Even off the car they can send themselves, a top plate and a pair of mole grips 50+ yards. I should know, it happened to me the first time I dismantled a spring and shock absorber combo!
 
This car had also just flown through its MOT, however there is no rust evident on the spring at all, let alone where it broke.
 
I bought my Leon with a snapped front spring.
Didn't really seem any different, even did silly speed on the autobahn on the way home.
It was half of the top bend, if that makes any sense. So nothing übermajor.

However, it should have given me some sort of warning not to buy it :o
 
MikeHiow said:
Perhaps with the cars you choose to drive, a spring snapping is as common as brake pads wearing, but it has not happened to me before.
Click to expand...

The last car I replaced springs on was a few months ago - both front springs on a mk5 Fiesta I bought from a mate.

But yes, it's a very common thing, especially on modern Fords. I'm surprised you don't know this with all your motorsport contacts, surely those boys (and old men who are much quicker than you in the same car) on the Isle of Wight racing round car parks have suffered similar before?
 
****ing Fords, I think I'll take the shock to a garage to be put back together next time.

Please fully star swearies.
 
Common on some Mercs too - Dad's let go in a big way but fortunately it was parked on the drive at the time. Would have probably been a massive crash if it'd done it at cruising speeds. Flaw in the casting appeared to be the fault, exacerbated by a poor spring coating that led to localised corrosion.
 
allllec said:
Scary the amount of pressure in those springs. Even off the car they can send themselves, a top plate and a pair of mole grips 50+ yards. I should know, it happened to me the first time I dismantled a spring and shock absorber combo!
Click to expand...

You could quite easily kill yourself dicking about taking a strut apart...









* idiots need only apply however
 
I do not doubt that with the amount of pressure required to get this spring on the ridiculously short strut, this wasn't helped by possibly the hardest spring I've ever had to clamp (ended up having to use four in the end - 3+1 "safety"). Can anyone tell me why the uncompressed spring is not straight?

I don't think you'd even feel it if you caught it in the face just game over.
 
Funnily enough the same thing happened in my wife's Mk6 Fiesta - we'd loaded the car up ready for a 200+ mile trip to visit relatives when 10 feet from our house the spring snaps, made a really unhealthy noise when it went too :p
 
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