pewe
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| posted on 19/2/21 at 11:34 AM |
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Broken spring?
So the tin-top went in for an MOT with my local indie.
Before I'd even reached home he was on telling me FR spring was broken.
Long story short - springs for BMW E60/61 unobtainable in UK.
Took Autodoc 18 days to deliver ex-Germany (having been quoted 4-5 working days).
Reason (apart from Brexit nonesense and Covid) is there's been an epidemic of broken springs since the cold weather.
In fact on the owners forum there are 20+ reports and counting. Fortunately no accidents though reports of tyres slashed by the broken spring end.
There's a great CCTV clip of a guy's car parked on his drive. Suddenly a loud "ping" and the front of the car drops!
It's not down to potholes (obviously those don't help) but seems more likely age and cold. Are springs consumables nowadays?
I gather there are similar problems with some Mercs.
I do know Citroen did a recall for similar problems some time ago and just wonder if BMW could be persuaded to do the same.
Trouble is I set car longevity by my late SAAB 9-5 which did 160k hard miles including towing and never had any major mechanical issues.
Any thoughts guys?
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Mr Whippy
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| posted on 19/2/21 at 12:43 PM |
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Broken springs are extremely common and nothing unusual. My local MOT mechanic said due to covid and cars not being used he was seeing loads more than
usual. Things that help are putting thin rubber "washers" between the spring and the seat to protect the coating (added these myself),
actually washing the springs during cleaning. Cleaning and removing rust from the springs before it causes a crack.
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macc man
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| posted on 19/2/21 at 05:51 PM |
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I have to say almost every vehicle I have owned in the last 20 years has had a broken spring at some point. Even the leaf spring on my van has
snapped. It must be down to inferior steel being used. Years ago I never had this problem. My MOT man always puts rusty springs down on the
advisories. I have taken to painting them before MOT time.
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perksy
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| posted on 19/2/21 at 08:09 PM |
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I think broken springs are becoming more prevalent and the quality of the road surfaces doesn't help
I'm not convinced by the quality of some of the cheaper stuff either
I'm still amazed that some owners only replace one spring instead of replacing them in pairs 
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steve m
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| posted on 19/2/21 at 08:55 PM |
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I must be driving a bit too sedately, as in all my 45 years of driving, ive never had a car that has had an Mot issue with springs, nor had one
break,
Shoxs yes, but springs never, and ive owned some right dogs of cars over the early years !!
but then again, ive never owned, and never will a German car, designed from the start, to fail, and cost an awful lot of money
I smashed two alloys and had to replace both of them at £200 each, on a pot hole a few years ago, in my 7, but the springs intact
steve
Thats was probably spelt wrong, or had some grammer, that the "grammer police have to have a moan at
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James
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| posted on 19/2/21 at 10:13 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by steve m
I must be driving a bit too sedately, as in all my 45 years of driving, ive never had a car that has had an Mot issue with springs, nor had one
break,
Shoxs yes, but springs never, and ive owned some right dogs of cars over the early years !!
but then again, ive never owned, and never will a German car, designed from the start, to fail, and cost an awful lot of money
I smashed two alloys and had to replace both of them at £200 each, on a pot hole a few years ago, in my 7, but the springs intact
steve
I'm clearly just a boy racer with a mere 26 years driving under my belt and I too have never broken a spring (risky statement when still at work
at 10pm 10 miles from home I know).
That includes 10years/120,000m in a German car (although admittedly it was mk2 Golf so pretty much indestructable!
No even had broken a wheel yet either- how boring!
Unlike my girlfriend who managed to bend her alloy enough that we had to do a wheel change whilst rushing to get to the airport!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses, behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights."
- Muhammad Ali
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Johnmor
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| posted on 20/2/21 at 06:08 PM |
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spring
I have to concur regarding springs, I have a skoda Superb 4x4 , had it from new, (best car I've owned) however it has broken 5 springs in the
past 8 years. Could be associated with roads surface or the fact that modern cars are comparably heavy and so hard on the suspension system.
I'm am surprised at the lack of availability of springs for the BMW, maybe a Brexit issue. Brexit has screwed a lot of things and
I've noticed that EU suppliers are now very reluctant to export to the UK, it's just the start I'm afraid
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craig1410
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| posted on 21/2/21 at 01:51 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by pewe
So the tin-top went in for an MOT with my local indie.
Before I'd even reached home he was on telling me FR spring was broken.
Long story short - springs for BMW E60/61 unobtainable in UK.
Took Autodoc 18 days to deliver ex-Germany (having been quoted 4-5 working days).
Reason (apart from Brexit nonesense and Covid) is there's been an epidemic of broken springs since the cold weather.
In fact on the owners forum there are 20+ reports and counting. Fortunately no accidents though reports of tyres slashed by the broken spring end.
There's a great CCTV clip of a guy's car parked on his drive. Suddenly a loud "ping" and the front of the car drops!
It's not down to potholes (obviously those don't help) but seems more likely age and cold. Are springs consumables nowadays?
I gather there are similar problems with some Mercs.
I do know Citroen did a recall for similar problems some time ago and just wonder if BMW could be persuaded to do the same.
Trouble is I set car longevity by my late SAAB 9-5 which did 160k hard miles including towing and never had any major mechanical issues.
Any thoughts guys?
Been there - got the t-shirt 
https://meerkats.uk.com/log-book/2021/1/15/front-spring-failure-134979-miles-
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coyoteboy
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| posted on 21/2/21 at 09:58 PM |
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Only ever had one spring break on an abused 306 strut. Big pothole impact. Regardless of tons of spring corrosion etc. It does seem to be very common
on larger German cars. I wonder if they're pushing design limits.
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Grimsdale
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| posted on 22/2/21 at 08:10 AM |
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The reason springs break these days is that they are made smaller for packaging reasons. Smaller springs need stiffer metal. Steel with a tensile
strength over 1000MPa is susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement, which occurs due to corrosion in a low oxygen environment, such as under a spalling
paint finish. The hydrogen is generated by the removal of the oxygen atom from a water molecule, and dissolves into the steel, where it can accumulate
in regions where there is more space between the atoms, i.e. grain boundaries. The metal will then crack when under load (all the time for springs).
This produces a characteristic intergranular fracture (although it's often well corroded). Once the crack propagates far enough, the remainder
of the spring will fail in overload.
Short answer: stop your springs from corroding.
Andy
[Edited on 22/2/21 by Grimsdale]
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coyoteboy
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| posted on 23/2/21 at 11:24 AM |
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Or buy a car with big ass old-school springs.
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joneh
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| posted on 23/2/21 at 12:43 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by coyoteboy
Or buy a car with big ass old-school springs.
They were the only things that didn't break on my old Jeep!
On my VW Polo, only had a few things go wrong, all generally minor other than a spring snapping when driving up to Gatwick...
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Mr Whippy
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| posted on 23/2/21 at 01:09 PM |
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Its funny that the original beetle with it's torsion bars never had this as an issue. However the rear bars were coated in some green epoxy like
coating and sealed in a tube. The front bars were made of a bunch of individual strips of steel, coated in grease and again in a sealed tube.
Breakages were just totally unheard off. considering the shear compactness of the system, especially the rear design, I'm amazed it isn't
the norm on all cars.
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coyoteboy
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| posted on 23/2/21 at 04:27 PM |
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They went out of favour years ago apart from on the rear of PSA cars. They're a bit weird to package up front and for multi-link suspension cars
would need the full spring force taken by links with bearing ends, which are likely to last about 2 minutes.
But when you have all the money in the world, and low suspension travel....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNepYY7KxaA
[Edited on 23/2/21 by coyoteboy]
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