Broken nearside rear coil spring

[james.milroy]

Was checking over the car the other day in preparation for its MOT test. Dunno why but I was compelled to look at the rear coils springs cause I thought the car had been sitting low at the back a week past when I had 5 onboard for a trip to the Lake District. The bottom coil of the nearside spring had broken but was still in there. I hadn't experienced any noises or such like during everyday driving. I was a bit annoyed cause I had exactly the same problem on my last Leon Mk3. I was getting tyres fitted and the tyre fitter noticed the broken spring (nearside again!). I got that one replaced at the dealers under warranty albeit with a bit of an argument, and they only replaced the broken one, not the pair.
Well I took the car in for its test yesterday and told the tester that I had noticed the spring was broken. They told me not to worry about it and they would get it sorted and MOT'd before the day was out. True to their word, they got a pair of Sachs springs and fitted them and tested the car to boot, so despite being a bit lighter in the wallet department, all is good. This was my local independent I might add, they said its not uncommon for them to fit 5 or 6 coil springs a week as the roads are so bad and well quality of parts just isn't as good as they used to be. Rear springs especially are a bit weedy.
I'm just a bit disappointed that the springs seem to break so easily and early in the cars life (3 to 4 years old). The rears on my car (2018 facelift) were like new, no rust evident, still clean with labels attached.

 

[SuperV8]

Not good, sounds like a manufacturing fault to me - rather than the usual corrosion+age induced break.

 

[RUM4MO]

I'd think that if you had got your hands on the failed spring, you would have found either slight flaking or paint missing due to the last coil or so rubbing against the lower spring cup, and that corrosion had caused "micro pitting" that ended up with these micro pits joining together and weakening that area enough for the coil to snap. I'd agree that probably VW Group are not using "good enough for the car's initial cost" suppliers and that the supplier of these springs is probably from Eastern Europe and they seem to get away with using very poor quality steel - which seriously adds into this issue with "micro pitting" caused by localised loss of protective paint due to stone chipping or the poor quality paint being unable to flex along with the coil spring - same issues with ARBs ie paint cracking and flaking off and rusting starting. I find that everywhere where at least VW SEAT, paint unsighted assemblies like subframes with black paint - corrosion moves in very quickly - and that is not clever!

I plan, if I get enough warning or time, is to only ever fit springs from Lesjofors or Kilen - probably the same group, as they use their own steel produced for springs - and not just using what they can get away with. I have used Sachs springs in the past due to MOT fail and need to resolve immediately though, good enough if/when you can source the exact same original spec in weight range, but some times the ride height is higher due to Sachs reseller choosing to only stock a short range - ie typically like ECP do!