Replacing Rear Springs
- Thread starter Mr Pig
- Start date
Where do you live?? I've only seen two springs break on cars I knew. One on a Vauxhall Cavalier and this one on my son's car.
Central/Southern Scotland, cars breaking road springs has been very "fashionable" for years, maybe worse in areas where road salt is used in winter. Poor road surfaces which is a UK wide issue makes things worse.
I've only ever had road springs break on VW Group cars, which is what I've owned since 2000, so maybe things got worse from that point in time, or VW Group source really nasty quality road springs. Never had a spring break on Fords or VX Cav GSI 4X4.
I've only ever had road springs break on VW Group cars, which is what I've owned since 2000, so maybe things got worse from that point in time, or VW Group source really nasty quality road springs. Never had a spring break on Fords or VX Cav GSI 4X4.
I put 16'' steel wheels and winter tyres on our main car. Hit a pot hole a few years ago which dented the steel wheel! A larger alloy would've been destroyed, no question.
Everyone rushes to put big alloys on their cars but a lot of our roads are just too bad for them.
Everyone rushes to put big alloys on their cars but a lot of our roads are just too bad for them.
I think that you could add to that that too many people fit aftermarket and very cheap alloys to their cars, and these alloys tend to be very fragile and probably not built to any of the main test houses specs.
I agree that aftermarket wheels are often not the best but if you hit a bad pot hole with a 40 profile tyre even a OEM rim is going to do well to survive it. They look nice and all but really, these wheels are a bad idea if you live in an area with bad roads. ie, most of the UK.
My son brought his car round and we changed the springs. It was very easy. Of note:
We changed both and the unbroken spring had rust bubbling under the paint in exactly the same spot where the other snapped. Looking at where this point is, what I think has happened is that whoever fitted the springs to the car forced the bottom of the spring into the cup and scratched through the paint. After that, rust and failure were inevitable.
I didn't have new bolts but the locknuts were not gripping properly after being taken off so I'm going to order new bolts and nuts. You can get them off eBay.
The replacement springs from TPS were identical to the ones that came off, including the dot markings.
Thank you all for your advice :0)
We changed both and the unbroken spring had rust bubbling under the paint in exactly the same spot where the other snapped. Looking at where this point is, what I think has happened is that whoever fitted the springs to the car forced the bottom of the spring into the cup and scratched through the paint. After that, rust and failure were inevitable.
I didn't have new bolts but the locknuts were not gripping properly after being taken off so I'm going to order new bolts and nuts. You can get them off eBay.
The replacement springs from TPS were identical to the ones that came off, including the dot markings.
Thank you all for your advice :0)
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