A lot of modern cars are equipped with coil spring suspension – go and have a look at your car. Have you done so? Did you notice wound steel springs set up to take the up-and-down movement of the vehicle? These are your coil springs.
Coil springs are unfortunately one of the most frequently damaged parts of a vehicle – due to loads that they bear and the ever more common speed bumps up and down the country. Other parts of the suspension system (joints, shock absorbers and wishbones) also take the strain and can fail.
In a previous job, I had to drive over 4 sets of speed bumps on the way to work and 4 back. This resulted in damage to rear coil, as part of the coil actually snapped off. This is an MOT fail.
Some companies offer a variety of pieces of kit that act to support your coil springs, the most common of which is a rubber that works to reduce shock. How effective these are I’m not sure – but my recommendation is to get your mechanic to look over your suspension now and then, say when you take the car in for a service and MOT, or even when you’re getting tyres fitted.
Loading ...
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
Only last a coil spring snapped on the way to work, fortunately I knew something was wrong with the car but couldnt put my finger on it ot start with – then the off side front was suddenly ripped apart with no warning! I was only doing 25 mph but even at that lack of speed it wasnt funny. Good job I wasnt doing the normal 70 mph on the motorway!
This is the fourth Vauxhall Ive had coil spring snap but not previous one havent destroyed the tyre.
Is this not a tad dangerous?
Hi Rog,
Unfortunately most cars can suffer from this. The best thing to do is make sure that when your car goes in for a service or MOT you ask that the springs are specifically checked. They should be anyway but it’s always good to make sure you’re going to get warned of any potential issues before they arise…
I have a V. Corsa 02 reg, 2nd car, only 14,000 miles on clock – used for shopping, and about town locally. In our village we had some speed bumps put in in 2006, and yesterday, had car serviced, and failed MOT – THREE coil springs were broken, and had to be replaced.
This car has done 1000 miles since last MOT – it has obviously had damage done to it by speed bumps. No other speed humps to go over anywhere else I go, other than in the village where I live. This is infuriating, as it has cost nearly £300 inc vat to get them repaired. Can’t claim of Council, as they say humps tested, and are within acceptable heights, therefore they don’t want to know.
Surely something must be done as there must be thousands of people paying out shedloads of cash through no fault of their own!!
Hi Wendy,
I’m not sure if there’s much we can do about this one I’m afraid.
Perhaps what you could do is set up a petition in your village, or canvas locals to find out if they’ve suffered similar problems? You could then take the issue to your local MP etc.
Hi everyone,
I had MOT failed because of
1)Offside front coil spring fractured.
2)Offside front coil spring mounting damaged and seriously weakened.
The cost for reparing this is GBP 770 plus MAT test fee GBP62. It is a big money and I was shocked.
My car is Mercedes Vaneo.
Luckily I just found I had a insurance with Car protect and call them. And they said only 1) is insured. They want garage to call them t discuss. I will come back the results soon….
Hi, it seems to be a sad fact of modern life that cars aren’t what they used to be; after contacting Vauxhall Customer Care (why its called that I’m still not sure of) they were not interested since I’d had the parts replaced by non-Vauxhall spares. Now why would I spend loads of money on Vauxhall springs that only cover 42K miles and risk my life and cost twice at much??
My car had had a full service by a Vauxhall dealer only 4 months previously.
This will be the last Vauxhall I buy – since I’d like some customer service not ‘you didn’t buy our spares so…’ Vote with your money!
My self and two colleagues in the same office have had incidents with our Ford vehicles (Focus, Fiesta, Mondeo) within three months.
All potentially extremely dangerous, in my case suspension collapsed and tyre exploded when pierced by the fractured spring.
We are contacting Motoring Which and Watch Dog to see if some investigative journalism/bad publicity can get some positive action either from the vehicle manufacturers or from the Councils deploying the bumps and not repairing potholes.
Thoughts appreciated.
Andy
Hi Andy,
Sorry to hear about your dangerous journey. There’s no doubt that there are more cases of this type of vehicle damage than ever. I’d love to hear how you get on, I just wouldn’t hold my breath – I understand the council are quite adept at saying “they’re within the rules” when it comes to speed bumps.
I have just had to have a spring replaced on my 2.5 year old corsa. Fortunately it just made a rattle, no exploding tyres – thank goodness.
Anyway just wanted check about speedbumps. My partner uses car for work and everyone says that the speedbumps there are far too high, is there a legal limit, they are on private land so not the councils responsibility.
Steph
Hi Steph,
Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about the law relating to speed humps, but I can give the DfT link:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/tpm/tal/trafficmanagement/speedcontrolhumpsscotlandeng4117?page=1
It seems to suggest that regardless of whether it’s private or council land the requirement is the same. After all, if an owner of private land (say who owns a business park) puts in 200mm speed bumps, they’ll be opening themselves up to lawsuits when it proves to be more than uncomfortable, even at a 5mph speed.
Of course, there’s another issue here too. If someone constructs a minature wall on land that does have public access (say I need to visit the premises for whatever reason) and I arrive on my motorbike, there’s a far greater risk I’m going to come off when tackling said speed control measure due it not following regulations…
Thanks for this. Would you beleive that the speed bumps have now been removed, must have had too many complaints.
Steph
hi guys
my front driver side coil snapped off the other day .i belive it is because off the vast amounts of spped bumps around my area.i have an audi tt so parts arent cheap but my local garage fixed this for £45.00
I’ve fitted coilover suspension to my 172, and when I took the old springs off, they were a bit knackered to be honest. Maybe its because they’re French, or maybe it’s because UK roads are terrible to put it mildly, I’m not sure lol.
i am a mechanic and change probably 4 springs a month. my latest to a 55 reg nissan note 1.6. this is a very expensive one 103+vat plus labour that is non genuine price ouch. anybody else out there withsame car? Mondeo is the most evil with peugeot 406 a close 2nd.
Poor road surfaces + increased speed bumps + harder suspension settings = damage to coil springs…
I’ve just found out one of my coil springs has just gone on my Vauxhall Corsa. It’s 9 years old, but in very good condition as was hardly used by the previous owner. The Vauxhall garage is charging £250 for the part, which after reading these comments, seems like a lot. It won’t pass its MOT without. I moved to an estate with double speed humps at the entrance, and several around the main road, which are a pain, and don’t slow people down as they just speed over them, and between them. I don’t think I can claim as it’s owned by a management company.
Same thing happened to my Mondeo recently – it failed its MOT thanks to a broken front spring. I can quite definitely blame this on the stupid speed humps near work. Quoted cost was £120 for the broken spring, although I did decide to play it safe and got the other one replaced as well – total cost £200.
On Wednesday 7th July, while driving north with my two children on the M6 just south of Manchester, I heard a loud noise like something coming up off the road, followed by the front left tyre blowing out. With the car travelling at 70mph, I managed to keep control to get the car from the fast lane to the hard shoulder.I found a broken piece of coil spring and the area responsible for shredding the tyre. The car in question was a Peugeot 307, six years old with 25k on the clock, MOT’d the week before and only having done 740mls since last MOT and had driven 700mls that week travelling to and around South Wales Having had time to think about what happened, I am forming the opinion that speed bumps are accelerating damage to this area, let’s be honest, your average family car was not designed to negotiate these things on a daily basis but, much more worryingly, are creating a potentially lethal situation by gradual weakening of the coil spring which could then fail at any time, like on a motorway in my instance..Originally, these speed bumps were to placed around schools and such areas where there were lots of children, but then sprouted up everywhere.Where I live in Kirkcaldy,you cannot drive 1/2 mile without encountering a street with these things. Having had no breakdown cover, it cost me a total og £615 to get the car towed back to Fife but was happy to escape with our lives to be honest. My feelings on this are councils need to revert to the original use of these speed bumps and remove them from the built-up areas and anywhere else the unnecessarily put them and keep them around schools and such.There could be millions of motorists driving around with a potentially lethal fault they are unaware of that could strike at any time, my neighbour’s 7yr old Fiesta front spring failed recently and she is strictly a town driver! What are your thoughts on this and do I have any recourse with the garage that done the MOT?
Regarding previous comment from Nigel, My wife had her 03 vauxhall Corsa MOT’d and serviced this Friday, while driving the next morning the front suspension snapped and blew the tyre (seems to be quite common on Corsa’s judging by comments on this site!!) Should this have been picked up in the MOT or could some damage have been done in the garage during MOT/service. Or is it just a coincidence it happened the morining after it had been in the garage? Any comments appreciated.
I have been wanting to add some comments about Vauxhall Vectra springs to an active discussion. I have seen lots of other comments on other older discussions on the web. I have had five springs going on my 54 Vectra. It has now done ONLY 38,000 miles. The first was a couple of years ago (just outside warranry) the front LHS suspension collapsed going over a slightly rough road (30k on the clock). The end result was a new sping on front LHS and on the back and a tie rod. I also told the dealer I could smell fluid from the shocker. They ignored this. The shocker leaked oil and I got it replaced afterwards. April this year. Reversing out of garage – grinding noise and blue smoke from tyre. Front RHS spring broken rubbing on tyre (tyre was rubbed but OK). AA towed to dealer. Three new springs – two on the front and the final one on the rear. Some web sites say this is because a new sping designed in Germany introduced a tighter turn on the last two (lower) coils of the spring. It allowed a more direct coupling and saved on another component. All the weight now bears down unevenly on this point – so it snaps. Makes sense. I now no longer trust the car, as I can imagine this happening at higher speeds. All the springs have been purchased and fitted by the same Vauxhall dealer. I wrote and asked Vaxhall if they were aware of this problem and had they redesigned springs in newer cars. I told them that I had read about the design of the springs (coil turns). Over the phone they said that they didn’t comment on web sites and they weren’t aware of a general problem with their springs. I asked to talk to one of their engineers about this, and the call centre said they would pass this on, but that engineers didn’t tend to operate at ‘our’ level (wasn’t sure if that meant him, or me a paying customer). It is true that springs in other cars fail – but it could be they copied this design. However, the person that commented on the Vaixhall spring design was an ex Vauxhall mechanic, and it is very obvious looking at the back springs of my vectra that the bottom coils are not uniform in diameter. I also will not be buying a Vauxhall again. I am looking at manufacturers that have seven year warranties.
Vauxhall have denied there’s a problem with their coil springs; I’ve now had all 4 springs replaced and not by Vauxhall I hasten to add.
One of the rear springs failed 6 months after the front one took out my tyre. They did suggest they may offer a small discount if I had the car inspected by Vauxhall (at a cost to myself) and then depending on their findings they may discount the repair. Somehow I didn’t trust them, anyhow their repair cost even with discount would still be more than paying for a small indepenant garage charged me!
Like Mr Fenton I have vowed not to purchase another Vauxhall and take every opportunity to inform people of the lousy so called Customer Service (they should be sued under the Trade Description Act for calling it Customer Service!). Pity really since this is my sixth and last vauxhall I’ve owned. The sooner they gettaken over by a ‘real’ company the better.
Seems like there could be a common problem with vauxhalls and from previous comments doesn’t sound like vauxhall want to know? My wifes corsa only has 16,000 miles on clock, so it isn’t exactly run down. I’ve had a Toyota for 2 years and a Renault for 8 years before that and never had any problems with suspension coils. We’ll certainly now be looking to get rid of the Corsa and try to warn other people off them!
Took my son’s 2005 Vectra C for an MOT test today and it failed on one broken nearside front and one broken offside rear spring. To be quite honest in 43 years of motoring I’ve never had a broken spring on a car. These beehive shaped units on the Vectra seem quite ridiculous to me as all the weight bears down on the narrow base of each unit.
I realise that road humps and potholes are a menace to cars these days but I cannot see this happening to my own 2002 Nissan Primera with heavy duty conventional spring units. So I’ve priced up the whole set for the Vectra (it seems logical to fit all 4 new now) at around £180 for parts alone. A totally unnecessary expense caused by poor design I would say!
So there are still some people interested – good!
I have hunted out the web page where I read the stuff. I have pasted this below. My question is for the professional car guys (who I assume are in the red) – should we be complaining to the Dep for Transport.
I have had a spring go on a 2001 Golf (the only one so far), but you would hardly have known. The car was driveable. The problem with these Vauxhall springs is that they appear to fail catastrophically and contact/burst the tyre. That is not a money issue, it is a serious safety issue and that is what gets me about the lack of interest from Vauxhall. Nigel James lived to tell the tale, but how many Vauxhall drivers have not? One post I read said that one manufacturer (not Vauxhall) had retrofitted a safety cage around their similarly designed springs to prevent the sharp end of the spring going through the tyre. That suggests some manufacturers know they have a problem.
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/garage-services/126001-vauxhall-vectra-suspension-failiure-2.html
Box spanner posts:
“Last night I spoke to a spring manufacturer, he was very familier with this problem and reeled off all the makes and models with the same fault. He said that they are quite happy to make a spring for a customer to his drawing but sometimes the spring fails and they say ‘you made it wrong’ to which he would tell them how to improve the design to prevent failure.
A compression spring should be parallel but the one Vauxhall fit has the last couple of turns reduced in diameter which causes a high stress point in the spring and causes it to break. The reduction in diameter is to do away with an extra component that mates with the spring and the suspension. So the buck stops with Adam Opel who designed it in Germany. I imgine a product recall now would probably bankrupt the place. So when buying the next car avoid the one with the reduced diameter coil springs.”
My garage has phoned this afternoon to say my 05 corsa with only 22,000 miles on the clock has failed its MOT due to a cracked road spring and its going to cost £100 + vat. Reading these comments I suppose I should be grateful it has been picked up, but I agree it is due to the growth of speed bumps, there is a particularly vicious one locally outside a school and the roads were badly affected during the winter.