Got a bit if s shock when I came to drive to my local leisure centre. Car sounded like a bag of old nails , coming from the front offside wheel. Never heard this sound before and scared the life out of me!! I limped to my local garage being careful over every bump and when I got there he put his hand under the wing and pulled out a bit of broken coil!! Omg I was so lucky it didn't shread my tyre. They replaced it there and then for me. Haven't got bill yet lol...sometimes god does smile on you!!!!
First broken coil spring in 28 yrs of driving!!
- Thread starter Stiglet
- Start date
I broke one in my last cupra (****) my pants!! Big bang like id hit a brick and pulled to one side!!
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I've had a couple fail now, thankfully they've always failed at the bottom so it doesn't really do much apart from rattle about a bit!
A Spring is £30 or thereabout so £70 labour. Fair deal I say. Would probably have suggested changing the pair but as you were in a situation I can understand.
I took the opportunity to upgrade to Eibach Pro 25/30mm kit. Got a bit of a bargain off ebay, someone selling a BNIB old stock for under £100 for the whole kit. Kept the old shocks but thought I'd just replace them when they were knackered.
I took the opportunity to upgrade to Eibach Pro 25/30mm kit. Got a bit of a bargain off ebay, someone selling a BNIB old stock for under £100 for the whole kit. Kept the old shocks but thought I'd just replace them when they were knackered.
Bet it was driver's side one .. the engine is heavier than gearbox so even though that side sees less potholes.. it breaks sooner.
So far in about that many years.. aftermarket MX-5 spring, OEM Merc G rear and Ibiza Cupra TD front driver .. first one was design flaw, second/third are known weak points.
Comes from folk designing springs and pushing them too far i.e. too small and too high stress for the application. Spring design can be a bit frustrating and if you do not know what you are doing.. easy to get wrong. Lots of cars have broken springs now because of the packaging issue.. thankfully the cracked bodyshells have stopped as design has got better
So far in about that many years.. aftermarket MX-5 spring, OEM Merc G rear and Ibiza Cupra TD front driver .. first one was design flaw, second/third are known weak points.
Comes from folk designing springs and pushing them too far i.e. too small and too high stress for the application. Spring design can be a bit frustrating and if you do not know what you are doing.. easy to get wrong. Lots of cars have broken springs now because of the packaging issue.. thankfully the cracked bodyshells have stopped as design has got better
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My spring was 35 quid dam vat about 20 quid so labour about 50 quid . Not bad when you break it down . I did ask should you change 2 and garage said no. And yes it was drivers side !! Thought about lowering her but they said I would need shocks and springs to do a proper job not just springs . I'm happy it happened at low speed !!!!
It depends on how you view it, that dpring broke due to fair wear and tear and most probably due to being crap VAG CZ (Skoda specified) part. When my wife's Polo 9N broke its O/S front spring, I replaced both with VAG crap, that was about 7 or so years ago. When a rear one broke (only discovered by MOT guy) I replaced both with quality springs from a spring maker - no VAG crap that time!! BTW, when my wife's car broke its spring - reversing out of garage, it broke at exactly half height - now that is a bit of a show stopper! After a few months, you could be thinking that a four wheel re-alignment is required, its at that point you will have wished that you replaced both so that you are not paying for that re-alignment again in a year's time maybe.
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flux
Guest
I think someone is having a laugh, it makes most sense to design suspension parts that can not be fitted wrong way round, and that includes these springs front and rear, also they are not "sided". I could be wrong - but I don't think so! These springs are tapered equally at each end and the coil is "finished" in the same way at both ends. If they were to get fitted only one way round, either the top and bottom would look a lot different, or they would get clearly marked to indicate which end was top.
Only thing I can think about that would cause comment is, if you bought genuine VAG parts, and fitted them so that the "weight" colour bands were not showing on the outside - but once they are on the car, who cares where the colour bands are, aftermarket suppliers do not , in general, mark springs with colour bands - they just print part numbers on them.
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Cupra springs are same either end.. but if someone was being sloppy they could fail to seat the bottom spring into the strut as the end should locate in a dent in the spring perch. I'd post a photo.. but not bothering to load it to another site to link it..that is way too much!
.. and yes made in Czech.Rep .. but there is no Cupra alternative. Not sure any other manufacture is going to be significantly better .. at best 3-5% better steel grade plus some detail design work which will buy a little time but only 10% real world life... so not any real gain. They have to be the same shape/form to get the same spring rate. Most folk sell their car way before fitting the third spring..
The Scandinavian companies that only manufacture springs for a living, do try to give these springs a better chance of surviving by using better quality steel and the important bit is that they add anticorrosion protection before painting them. In my experience, all the "running gear" on these small VAG cars suffer from being made from CZ sourced metal parts. This means that lower swivels run the risk of failing due to the cover rotting thro before the ball/socket fail due to wear, the TRE are made from compressed mushrooms - or something like that which meakes replacing them a nuisance. Even the rear beam disolves at an alarming rate due, once again, to crap material and crapper protection.
I noticed a metallic, rattling noise from under the car last week and removed the wheels on Saturday to see if I could see anything wrong. I discovered that the front offside spring was broken at the bottom and that about half a turn of the coil was sitting in the cup. Fortunately the local MOT station, which I have been using recently for repairs, was open and they booked my car in today to replace both sides.
They rang me up tell me that the job was finished and that the other side was broken as well, at the top! They also replaced both top mounts as one was badly worn and the other one came apart when they removed it. Apparently they had a job finding replacement parts in stock.
The bill was £76.46 for the springs, £62.20 for the top mounts and £87.50 for labour. That was a total of £226.16 but there was also £45.23 VAT on top, so the final bill was £271.39. I didn't think that was too bad and I was pleased that I got it repaired so quickly. The only problem is that they pointed out that the front pads are getting low and will need replacing soon. More expense!
They rang me up tell me that the job was finished and that the other side was broken as well, at the top! They also replaced both top mounts as one was badly worn and the other one came apart when they removed it. Apparently they had a job finding replacement parts in stock.
The bill was £76.46 for the springs, £62.20 for the top mounts and £87.50 for labour. That was a total of £226.16 but there was also £45.23 VAT on top, so the final bill was £271.39. I didn't think that was too bad and I was pleased that I got it repaired so quickly. The only problem is that they pointed out that the front pads are getting low and will need replacing soon. More expense!
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