Coil spring problem

[gilly56]

My 4 yr old car recently went into a main dealership Bodyshop to have the passenger front wing replaced.Bumper repainted.When I went to pick the car up I noticed a noise straight away which sounded like they had left their tools in bonnet.The noise was there each time I turned a corner or hit minor bump in road.As the body shop had closed i went to the showroom to explain.The guy came out and put his hand under the wheel arch and like magic pulled out the spring.Bodyshop tried to say they hear noises all the time on cars and said it could have happened anytime.They even tried to claim on the other persons insurance.Of course they refused,only right.They dont want to know basically,but it wasnt like that when I took it in and I find it strange that its the side they repaired.

Edited May 19, 2011 by gilly56

[rebel11]

Hi gilly

 

Welcome to CAG

 

The guys will advise as soon as they are available.

 

Thread moved.

[j66]

A spring is in compression all the time, whether the car is in use or parked up , it's always under load, so yes they can go at any time.

 

How badly damaged was that corner of the car?, did the repair involve any dismantling of the suspension?

 

Springs usually crack and over a period of time the crack gets worse until the spring fails. Is there any corrosion on the snapped faces of the spring to show that it has deteriorated over time?

 

It's quite hard to accidentally break a spring whilst repairing another area of a car.

[heliosuk]

j66 is not exactly right but not wrong either. Believe it or not it's actually quite easy to break a spring accidentally. As j66 says, when in the car the spring is in compression however this by nature means that the spring is stressed and because of the nature of design has a natural tendancy to bend outwards such as this ) for a right hand side or this ( for a left hand side.

 

A misplaced strike with a hammer that hits the outer edge can cause it to fracture. It is highly unlikey that a spring fails due to normal up and down movement unles of course it is a Mondeo or Vectra. It is also highly unlikely that the spring can fail due to side impacts as it is protected.

 

If you could post the make, model and year of your car it might be posible to narrow down the choices as being an unfortunately coincidental failure with a known issue or a problem that might have been caused by the repair. It would also be good to know the extent of the damage which was repaired and if it was the result of a side impact. If this is the case it is not unreasonable for the estimator to have missed the effect on the spring.

[gilly56]

Hello thanks for that, car is 07 Plate Vauxhall Corsa. My car was stationary and another car reversed into it,not much damage except for a dent on wheel arch area.but that was enough to misalign the wing to bumper etc.

[heliosuk]

Vauxhall like Ford have a bit of a problem with springs between certain ages at the moment. Given the nature of the failure you describe it is highly unlikely that the repairer has caused it. It will be extreamly difficult to prove.

 

See what they say but gut feel is that you might have to take this one.

 

As J66 says it is possible to go at any time. The big issue to me is if it did fail, did it fail in a way that endangered you like the Vectra scenario or was contained.

 

Frankly at the moment I'd accept it but go to the manufactuer for recompense. It does look like it's not actually the dealers fault.

Edited May 20, 2011 by heliosuk
Wrongly attributed to jeepster when it should be j66

[j66]

As jeepstar says it is possible to go at any time.

 

I think that you are getting me confused with someone else on this forum.

[heliosuk]

Yes indeed. Sincere apologies. Duly corrected.

[gbjadyy]

springs can break ar anytime with cars , whether they are driven or stationary and going by what you say about the damage in the accident it doesnt really sound like it would have been from that or else there would have been some reasonbly extensive damge to the susupention which you would have known about, also when the car was checked over for the insurance estimate it would have been included in that estimate and replaced accordingly, to be fair to the garage this sounds to me as though the spring has simply fractured after completion of the repair ( perhaps even when driven outside the workshop) , its possible that they may have jacked up the car for the repairs to be done which is then disturbing the sring somewhat compared to how it would have been since it was fitted originally, sometime even that can be enough to then fracture once the weight is then placed back on the vehicle if the spring is already in a weak state to start with, i dont think this is one to place blame on garage , its just a weak spring that has finally given up just as they all do eventually, you never know though they might give you a good price for repair if you ask them considering they had the other job from you !

[sir_gilmour]

Hi

Welcome to The Consumer Action Group.

 

 

I am just letting you know that as you haven't had any replies to your post yet, it might be better if you post your message again in an appropriate sub-forum. You will get lots of help there.

 

Also take some time to read around the forum and get used to the layout. It is a big forum and takes a lot of getting used to.

 

 

Once you start to find your way, you will soon realise that it is fairly easy to get round and to get the help you need.

 

It can be bit confusing at first.