What is this part? (I think it fell off my car)

fptosca

Hi all,
I hope somebody can help me out here. After buying petrol this morning, I set off and moved slowly towards the exit of the petrol station when I heard a piece of metal falling off to the ground.
I am nearly sure that if fell off my car, as it was underneath it, but I have no idea of what it is nor where exactly it has fallen from.
Other possibilities I can think of is that the part was there already and I run over it, hence the noise, or that someone threw it to the ground for some reason and it fell underneath my car. As I was about to join the main road, I was more concentrated on the traffic than on the road surface or the people around me.

My car is a 2008 Suzuki SX4 and here are a couple of pictures I made of the part.
Anybody knows what is this?

magentis

It looks like a bit of a spring,but not sure if its a bit big to be off an sx4.

b318isp

It looks like a piece of a broken coil spring from the suspension.

Is your car sitting lower at one corner?

Have a look in at the springs at each corner of the car to see if it may be from your car. That said, it looks like a large spring, larger than I'd expect from your car.

magentis

Were you carrying a heavy load at the time or have you hit a big pothole?
Looking at it again,it could well be from an sx4.

topstuff

That's definitely some of a coil spring, and it looks a fresh break as no rust on the edge, you should know by checking height on either side of the car or looking up at the spring

fptosca

thanks.

I'll take a look at the suspensions of the 4 corners. I was not bringing any heavy load on the car (I never do) and I was the only passenger at the time.

The car is not sitting lower at any of the corners and it rode fine when I drove from the station to home. It's a short trip, 5 minutes, so not sure if I should have notice something on the handling or if it's too short a trip to notice it.

choons

Definitely a piece of coil spring.

I doubt you would notice any difference in handling as its a very small section of the spring. The rest of the coil would act mostly as normal.

I can't say if its from your car or not though!

fptosca

I have checked and it's from my car. I guess I'd better bring it to a mechanic to have the part replaced.

Thanks to everybody for your help

biko

Boards to the rescue
Not a DIY thread btw, moved to main forum.

bazz26

fptosca wrote: »

I have checked and it's from my car. I guess I'd better bring it to a mechanic to have the part replaced.

Thanks to everybody for your help

One thing to note OP, it is recommended to replace the springs in pairs, on the same axle. So if it came off the front then both front springs should be replaced, otherwise you will have an imbalance between the new spring and the other one.