Broken Springs

[Mike Edwards]

Just sold my 2008 Vito 120 CDI Sport (639).

Rather embarrassing for the new owner to find what looks like a piece of suspension spring on the drive where the van had been parked.

Of course it could have come from my 2005 CLK 320 (W209).

We looked at both vehicles but couldn't see anything obviously missing or any particular corner sagging excessively.

Does anyone recognise the spring fragment in the attached photo? It's approximately 11cm across at the widest point.

 

[sparkydude]

does look like part of a vito spring .
see the below link for a set of springs being sold on ebay, looks like a match to me .

Mercedes Vito (W639) Dualiner - set of standard suspension springs | eBay

Nick

 

[Mike Edwards]

Aw crap, I think you could be right.

Not a good start. I assured him the van was mint aside from a couple of small issues. He turns up to buy it and notices a dent I had missed and finds a piece of a broken spring on the drive. Oops!

 

[sparkydude]

Just a thought, you dont think he put it there to try and get you to knock some money off the price do you??

Pretty low if he did , but hey you cant trust anyone these days .

If i was you i would take the van to kwik fit or the like and get them to check the springs . They should do it for free anyways so nothing lost .

Nick

 

[Auto-mobile]

100% Vito spring, if the part that's snapped is grey in colour it's quite recent to, wouldn't worry about it as it can happen anytime.

 

[Mike Edwards]

Sounds like it was from the van. Is it possible to tell whether it was front or rear spring?

Are they expensive to change? Springs themselves don't seem too costly. How about the labour costs?

 

[Auto-mobile]

That's a rear spring, I have done them in 20 minutes.

 

[Mike Edwards]

Great, thanks. Very strange as the heaviest load the van has ever had has been a couple of motor bikes, probably a maximum of 500 kg including all our other gear.