You're supposed to drive over speed humps slowly and not overload your car and clean the underside every now and again. Seems to be pretty common for coil springs to break these days (never had one go myself)both my daughters have had to have a new one for the mot, one of them had to have another one the next year as well,but they drive over the humps like they're not there. EDIT: Split from
Speed humps or potholes? - could be either although I drive very steadily and apart from the odd 'rush of blood' always have done. Still, it would be better if we didn't need speed humps and then there'd be more money available for filling in the potholes as they appear or repairing the roads properly in the first place rather than repeatedly patching them. As usual, the majority are made to suffer due to the activities of a minority of idiots - bah!
It's the cold weather, we always have a spate of springs this time of year, quite often if you examine the broken end of the spring you will notice that there is sign that there has been a small fracture before it breaks and this usually appears on a part of the spring where the paint have come off and the springs have gone rusty. This has been refferred to (at dealerships) as Amber spring syndrome normally rectified by changing the full set. Still, it's only a 5 minute job to change the springs on the front of the Rolls isn't it David?
Don't know about 'Amber spring syndrome' Matt, the fractures very probably started last year at Newark, when David took us both into town in his (uh huh) 'Rolls' ! With the main cause being both of us being men of the fuller figure ( you know, being built for comfort, not speed )
That's exactly what's happened - one fracture was rusty all the way through and appeared to be long-standing. The other was rusted most of the way through and the rest simply snapped. Both broken parts were lying on the garage floor. Maybe, but two days (and counting) on a crappy Fiat Idea. And a new front tyre is also needed because the broken spring-end gouged chunks out of it all the way round - bah!
Time to go back on the Atkins! Have you got it sorted? The garage I use say broken springs used to be rare but now it's a common MOT failure. They were doing one on a Corsa today when I was there, it was so snarled up they had to use a grinder to cut off each coil. The same problem as yours, with the spring hitting the tyre when it snapped was such a common occurrence on older Picassos that they retro fitted the struts with a bucket to catch the bits when the spring went.
Yeah, sorted now - new spring, tyre and upper strut bearing needed. There's been a longer term problem here because the tyre was worn on the inside shoulder as well as the damage caused by the broken spring end. I think that bearing has needed replacement for a while. The steering is much lighter now, more direct and the whole front end feels firmer - much better to drive, although the car is still, overall, shyte. Come back 2.5 litre Vectra SRi - all is forgiven...
Ideally, yes, but I trust my garage - I've been going there over 30 years - so I asked them to inspect the other spring and replace it if there was the slightest sign of damage. They said it was perfect and looked new - no cracks, rust or paint missing anywhere. The car belonged to my sister's husband's mother (yes, one 'lady' owner who just used it for shopping!) so I'm trying to find out if she'd had it replaced at some point...
Does sound as though the other one might have been replaced at some point. As long as the car is the same height both sides you should be ok.
