Spring fever

The front offside spring on my 2005, 23,000 mile Fiesta Ghia 1.6 snapped causing the spring to travel down the strut and jam into the wheel. Fortunately, the car was at rest when this happened and so no other damage was sustained. But it could have been a very different matter had this gone off at 60mph. My local garage from which I bought the car and which has serviced it has replaced both the front springs and, having kept the bits, looking at the spring it seems that there may have been a fault in the manufacture that caused an initial crack in which corrosion took place causing the bottom coil of the spring to eventually fail. At 23,000 miles, properly serviced and driven under normal driving conditions, this failure should not have occurred and the evidence of the break seems to suggest a manufacturing fault.

Asked on 21 February 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
Very common problem with European manufactured coil springs on all makes and models of European cars. It's because they are not finished off properly at the ends and admit corrosion that snaps them at the ends. There have been a lot of reports of the failure on Fiestas, and on the new Fiesta there is a special drain to try to prevent salty water settling over the bases of the springs, but the failure is a general one with European coil springs.
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