The Volvo stranded the wife

Those comments on what would have happened when the spring goes at speed:

Back in 2005, I was driving my 190e to town and about 6 miles into my 40 mile round trip, I heard a loud bang from the right front and the car sagged. I saw something fly into the long grass, so I assumed I hit something. Went in, picked up my mom, evaluated the situation and realized what happened. The spring broke and shot out of the wheel well.

On the way back, I stopped and retrieved the busted spring for inspection. Rust corroded the spring and it failed. No major damage to the car. I ordered a replacement set and installed. Now these are separate coil springs and struts, so not quite the same.

My Mini, when it was owned by my sister-in-law, broke a rear spring last year. Tore up the abs wire, and drove badly she reported via text.

I had installed new Bilsteins using the original springs. The springs appeared ok so I ran with them. I replaced them with ready struts because I could not find a reasonable price on original springs. Coils that are sold aftermarket automatically assume you are lowering your car two or more inches and thus no one sells stock springs. 🤨. The Mini is back to normal.

It happened twice but it didn’t destroy either car. And it happens, it seems, more on German cars (Mini is British, I know, but it’s really a BMW under the skin 😉). The 190e is moldering out in the yard, but I think it could be back on the road with some work. 😎
 

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That coil spring could have been defective from the factory. This is the first time I've seen a coil spring broke unless it has always been compressed of heavy load.
 
The wife took the Volvo to work. As she was leaving, she heard a clunk. The coil spring broke. Not only did it break, but it ruined the tire. Sadly, these are only 4 year old Sachs quick struts with around 30-40k on them.

It could have failed as she was driving. Could have been worse so I’m definitely thankful for that.

She kept the broken chunk. I’ll post pictures.

Luckily it didn’t break at 70 MPH on the highway.

The lower quality of some parts really doesn’t surprise me.
 
I wish they could simply just add chromium to the spring steel without changing its mechanical properties too much..

or charge a few extra dollars and use an actual barrier coat that resists rust longer than a year.
 
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Only one I’ve seen break was the highly stupid Ford design of plastic coated rear coils on my mom’s Tracer wagon-the plastic held in salt & moisture & rusted them out. One of them actually came out in 3 pieces!
 
Volvo and Saab commonly used Sachs OE for the strut/shock, Lesjöfors for springs. I have no idea who makes the OE mount. When I do euro cars I usually use Sachs or Bilstein, OE mounts and Lesjöfors springs and never had any issues.
When ordering Lesjöfors springs use the OE color code for the identical OE spring.

 
“Stranding” is not what is used to be. A cellphone call for help or Uber to whisk you away. I spent an overnight on kancamagus highway had to wait for plow to come by and give me ride to next town.

Glad it worked out !
My neighbors/ “grand parents” growing up lost communication during the blizzard of 1978 for 5 days. Cellphones have indeed been a life saver in many cases.


That is a horrible amount of rust for something 4 years old !! I think you'll be wanting to investigate a rust inhibitor spray soon.
i need to look a little closer when I take it completely off, but I’m guessing the crack in the metal caused the crack in the paint and the rust went from there. Like I said, it looks like it’d been cracked for a while.

The other areas of the spring seemed fine.
 
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