broken coil spring

today i was trying to sell the probe to a friend as a viable winter beater, and when we pulled out of my driveway there was a very slight clunk and a horrendous grinding from the right front corner. coil spring was broken and partly hanging over spring perch on strut, and was being mashed into inboard corner of tread. pulled into my garage and pulled RF wheel, and it was obvious that the spring had been broken for quite some time, as it was rusty on the surface of the break.

my theory is that the spring broke when I slammed the curb leaving the whitewater center about 18 months ago, and i just didn't notice it when I changed the control arm and half shaft. i think this is plausible because i rotated the spring to where the end would be properly seated and the break was directly inboard of, and therefore hidden by, the strut body. there is witnessing on the unibody where the spring struck it as it was displaced significantly rearward when i hit that curb.

anyway, i need to rock that car for another 2 months so i've ordered two new front struts and springs, and some new slide pins for the rear calipers ($203 plus shipping, but with a $50 gift card for orders over $200 so effective price $153.) i also found an oe set of alloys with decent tires for $150 obo on the local CL. so for around $300 plus some elbow grease it'll be reasonably tight again. i'm going to save well over a grand by rebuilding the front end of my wife's minivan at home, so spending a few hundy on the PGT to enable that larger savings is a solid trade-off.

Curb probably didn't help, but Ford car spring break all the time. At one point Taurii and Foucii had a 10yr/100K mi warranty added to just the springs. Haven't looked in awhile, but I do see them snap a lot. Very rust prone.

Broken springs are normal on a lot of cars.

If you didn't notice it before, is there any good reason to fix it for 2 months use? Just cut the other side to match

My bro's Escort has had two broken coil springs so far....and that car has not hit anything or is it rusty. For some reason, I've heard of this happening much more often with 80's/'90's Fords than anything else.

Pat wrote: My bro's Escort has had two broken coil springs so far....and that car has not hit anything or is it rusty. For some reason, I've heard of this happening much more often with 80's/'90's Fords than anything else.

Yeah, I had a '96 Escort and the rear springs were both broken. I went to the U-Pull to replace them, and out of about 20 cars, EVERY rear spring was broken. I think I found some off of a '00 or so Escort that fit.

My brother's '00 Contour SE had rusted spring issues, as well.

I have seen dozens of Probes, Taurus, Mazda 6/626 with broken springs.

My Escort would need new rears about every 75k

e46 rear springs very commonly break off the bottom coil

I'd never heard of broken coil springs before, but my brother in law had it happen on two different Tauruses.

My Accord Wagon had two broken springs, but it also had 225k miles on it, many of them in rural northern Ohio and metro Detroit which are both notoriously hard on cars.

WilberM3 wrote: e46 rear springs very commonly break off the bottom coil

Yep, BTDT.

The wife had a 97 escort when I met her... and it had broken rear springs.. (the car not her)

They had some kinda coating that was like a plastic sleeve that just rotted them right out.. (IIRC) What a horrible car.. pretty reliable.. but man that thing sucked the life right out of you every time you looked at it or turned the key...

all ford coils break. it's just one of those universal rules. my cougar had 4, and every mn12 car my buddy has/had came with broken rears.

I have had Fords since '82 and never had a broken spring. I guess I didn't keep them long enough although the ZX2SR was 10 yrs old when I sold it.

That's funny, there is a ZX2S/R parked right in front of my car RIGHT NOW... both rears are broken.

Add my Sable to the list of vehicles with broken springs. My car had the "recall" done at the dealer a while ago. They add these bolt on things to the bottom of the strut so when it brakes at speed it doesn't take out the tire.

add an 02 explorer to the list. My cousin didn't know her rear spring had broken in 2 places because they lodged together so no noise was made and it didn't appear to change the ride height at all.
thankfully there are monroe quikstruts the old shock had a boot on it that wouldn't come off nor fit through the spring opening. FORD FAIL!!!

fornetti14 wrote: Add my Sable to the list of vehicles with broken springs. My car had the "recall" done at the dealer a while ago. They add these bolt on things to the bottom of the strut so when it brakes at speed it doesn't take out the tire.

that made me LOL. don't replace the spring with one that doesn't break, oh no that would be too smrt. instead, add another part to contain the one that breaks.

AngryCorvair wrote: smrt.

My E36 M3 had a broken front spring when I bought it, and I did't even notice. It's an aftermarket (H&R) lowering spring, and I was swapping the stock ones back on when I saw it.