What the he**

Went to collect my grandson from primary school today, parked in the car park and came back to a flat tire, another parent said the tire literally exploded! went off with a big bang.

Called out the RAC who arrived and readied the spare and proceeded to change the tire...... ooops not coming off! Transpires that the coil spring had snapped and drove itself through the tire wall, not going to let go so ended up being trailed to the garage.

Thoughts came to mind, what if it had happened earlier when I was doing 70 on the motorway or going back home from the school in the heavy rain we were having at the time?

Never heard of a coil spring letting go in my 50 years and 2 million odd miles of driving although I've had leaf springs break a few times.

Nice thing to happen the day before my birthday.

Roger

I'm afraid coil spring breakage is very common these days, value engineering I think they call it. I had one go a few year's back, the paint on the spring was perfect and so was the paper label wrapped round it with the part number on. There was a pile of broken coils in the corner of the garage!

I have had a few break but never in such a dramatic fashion, usually the car just adopts a bit of a list.

Mike

Scary stuff, but not uncommon. I picked up a bit of coil spring only last week. Apparently modern springs are thinner and more prone to fail due to stress raising cracks caused by rust. The advantage of lighter springs in the suspension is better road holding and fuel economy. Springs are much more likely to break in countries where roads are salted despite the springs being protected by a plastic sheath.

Commiserations,

Dave

I've had a rear coil spring break a few years ago, it failed on the last lower coil, not much of a bang, I could not work out what had happened for a while. The man at the garage said that nowadays he gets a couple of cars a week with broken coil springs, he put it down to the poor state of the roads now, years ago he said it was unusual occurrence.

We do put great faith in the way parts are designed and even greater trust that if and when parts fail it will not be in a catastrophic manner. Does not always bear thinking about.

Neil

I can't help feeling that speed humps have a lot of the blame for coil spring failures on cars.

Hi, broken springs are not really a modern thing, I knew of several blokes cars a work having broken coil springs back in the 70's, may be just more common now as there a lot more cars on the road than there was then. I've had a couple myself over the years, but not causing any other damage.

Regards Nick.

One of the major causes of car coil spring breakage today is the fact that the springs are sometimes not evenly compressed, especially on rear springs, the spring describes an arc as it is compressed, thus creating a point on the coil that gets more stress, over the course of 60,000 odd miles in my trusty Ford Mundano, I have replaced all four, they are made down to a price, induction hardened, and considered a wearable replacement nowadays, but I also must add that I tow a trailer, and treat my car like a van!! I had one fail on a trip back from south Wales, blew a front tyre on the Mway hear brum, spring rubbing on the tyre, with two kids in the back, and towing a trailer full of camping gear! A bit fraught!!

I had two coil spring failures on my Smart, both on the lightly-loaded (rear engine + skinny tyres up front) front end. Each time it was on a speed hump at less than 20 mph. I'm pretty sure the council here think they are putting in tank traps. Not a problem for me any more since surrendering my licence.

Brian

I know that going too fast over speed bump is likely to over stress your car, and that they are designed to slow down traffic to make any accident less harmful to the victim (don't take me to task over that - I have worded it very carefully !!!!)

But surely if an obstacle is placed on a road with a 30mph speed limit and one were to drive over it, for example in the dead of night on Christmas Day when there is no traffic about, at 30mph - it ought not damage ones car? - or is that a totally naïve and innocent way of looking at it?

I don't suppose one could sue the local council for damages.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 23/09/2019 21:33:27

I too am sure of this. I've broken two over the years whilst crossing speed bumps at very low speed.

An experienced mechanic I know said that he thinks the increasing numbers of coil spring failures on cars and trucks are caused by several things:

1. worsening condition of many roads, especially high speed ones

2. cost down / value engineering of the springs themselves (quality of steel not good enough, and heat treating not consistent over the spring)

3. Mismatched to springs / very short lived shock absorbers - he said he had not seen many that worked properly on 3 - 6 yr old cars - the majority of cars that he sees are out of 3 yr warranty

4. curved operating path of springs , as others have mentioned.

Just part of modern cars I think - hard to get good value for money, and you are never finished fixing things on them after warranty finishes.

Yes, I was talking to my MOT inspector a couple of year's back. He had quite a modern Merc come in for an MOT, and that had a bit of a list. When up on the hoist, not only had the spring broken, it had completely disappeared!

I once had a coil spring break whilst I was parked! It was on a Bedford CF van. I also had continual trouble with the front shock absorber mounting becoming loose.

On the last series of Citroen Berlingo vans there was a recall to fit a shield around the bottom of the front springs to stop them puncturing tyres when the spring let go. One must assume that springs breaking must be high on the failure list if they went as far as a recall.....

Martin

I had a Ford escort front spring break where iit sits in the pan in the McPherson strut, they are colour coded so went to scrappy and found one of the right colour code and easily fitted it.

Oten when walking the dog I see bits of spring laying in the road and always on a roundabout, I pick up and dispose. 

Edited By Clive Hartland on 24/09/2019 07:56:13

I've had a rear spring which was found broken on the MOT, never noticed it. The car didn't drive any differently. The MOT man put it down to speed bumps, potholes and stiffer tyre sidewalls. Where cars are now much heavier and the tyres have become lower profile with very stiff sidewalls to cope with the weight, which results in little impact absorption from the tyre. The spring and damper takes the full force of any impact from small ripples to large potholes.

A couple of years ago our next door neighbors car, which he parks in the space outside my front window was sitting peacefully when there was the most almighty bang, the car took a lurch and a cloud of dust appeared from under the car, then almost immediately the car took a second lurch and dropped about another couple of inches!

The spring had broken after sitting without moving for a couple of days then the force of the car dropping had broken the remainder of the spring. Quite spectacular to witness and I wish I had had a security camera set up at the time. I might have made £250 from a TV show!

The car had to be transported to the local garage to get the remains of the coil spring removed.

You should try an early 2000s Astra or Vectra. We had several of these cars go through the family. I think we had at least one spring snap every year, always in winter. I replaced at least three myself, always (fortunately) the top coil or two.

Neil

'94 Ford Probe front springs breaking, a regular occurrence .

Came back to it after 4 years away and found one front spring broken in two places !