Front drivers side coil spring on shock shattered last night

dcmraad

Hi all, I drove about 100 miles yesterday over all types of road, then about 6 pm parked up and went to a gig. When I was about to drive away from gig (midnight, frost coming down) my front right tyre went down instantly. We got the jack out etc, took wheel off and couldn't get new one on properly.

Then I realised that the Front drivers side coil spring on the shock had shattered, and when I moved the car more than an inch the broken spring had speared my almost new winter tyre.

I changed these shocks 4 years ago and keep the car in good condition. Would there have been anyway for me to have checked this, how common is this? I am extremely lucky that I was not driving.

Mr Benevolent

How old is the car? What kind of roads is it driven on? The spring would've been falling apart to break like that. Potholes, rust - it can all affect it. The shocks don't have much to do with the state of the spring. I'd suggest checking the other three springs for corrosion, splintering etc with a good light.

Nothing to do except replace the spring and tyre. Might be an idea to have the other springs replaced too, they're not that expensive.

4odh4n

apparently springs can be affected by the extremely cold weather we had over xmas, and as a result they have got more brittle and are snapping.

i dont know if its true or not!, but i know of at least three ppl who have had this same problem in the last few weeks. all on cars pushing about 10yrs old so age is probably a factor also.

shedweller

I know 2 people that had front coils break (both had the same car) and this was before the recent cold winters. On one occasion the coil broke loose and speared the tyre as he was driving. The other as he was moving the car out of the garage. Just snapped as he turned the wheel with the resulting speared tyre too. No rust, no cold. Snapped where the first coil meets the end of the coil. Metal fatigue; bad design. Not safe at all.
I've hammered the daylights out of a fair few cars and never had a coil break.

dcmraad

shedweller wrote: »

I know 2 people that had front coils break (both had the same car) and this was before the recent cold winters. On one occasion the coil broke loose and speared the tyre as he was driving. The other as he was moving the car out of the garage. Just snapped as he turned the wheel with the resulting speared tyre too. No rust, no cold. Snapped where the first coil meets the end of the coil. Metal fatigue; bad design. Not safe at all.
I've hammered the daylights out of a fair few cars and never had a coil break.

I do drive hard, no idea what would have happened had I been driving on a back road at speed limit.

E39MSport

Check the mounts too, they may be siezed.