Springs

[calibrax]

Had my car in for service and MOT yesterday, and it turned out both rear coil springs were fractured. Had them replaced, and the car passed the MOT with no advisories (which is always nice to hear!)

On chatting with the tester he reckoned that these days more than half the cars he gets in for MOT have broken or unseated springs.

Have to wonder if springs are less durable nowadays due to different manufacturing techniques, or is this simply a legacy of the current state of the roads?

[MGZRod]

Suppose cars are a lot heavier on average now, which makes wear and tear on them a much more common occurence?

[deveng]

Its by no means more than half, in my experience it was rough 1 in 4 failures was a broken spring.

Heavier cars and horrific roads cause the problem. I'd like to say it's also due to a lack of mechanical sympathy, since none of my cars or family members cars have ever had a broken spring, and generally speaking, they are very nice to their cars.

[mattmoxon]

Almost certainly a combination of traffic calming measures (humps), appalling road surfaces and as mentioned the lack of mechanical sympathy some people give their cars (when combined with the first two it will damage suspension parts) rather than design fault (not adequate for vehicle weight) or poor component quality.

[Dav3yboy]

Was thinking this as well, was walking along the street and seen a coil of a spring on the pavement.

[calibrax]

deveng said:

it's also due to a lack of mechanical sympathy, since none of my cars or family members cars have ever had a broken spring, and generally speaking, they are very nice to their cars.

But I'm also very nice to my car... diesel autos generally don't lend themselves well to any kind of 'hooning' around, and I don't drive that way! So I don't think mechanical sympathy has much to do with it. If you and yours haven't had spring problems, then I'd say that's more down to luck than anything to do with driving style/attitude.

Having said that, surely if you drive on the roads in a 'spirited' manner, the springs should be robust enough to cope with that? I'm not talking about track day type driving here after all..