Snapped front springs

[Veg]

Sat in a school car park in my 2008 CLS, after doing a couple of hundred miles today and SNAP front offside suspension spring snaps! No warning just BANG. Has this happened to anyone else and is it easy to fix?

 

[tec]

I have had broken springs on my last 3 cars.

Fortunately my current CLK had new springs all round to pass the last MOT before I purchased it.

Potholes and speed bumps are to blame.

 

[SMB77]

I had a broken spring in my W204 - turns out it also had a knackered shock and it's turning out to be very expensive!

 

[como]

My wife's Avensis had the front spring go while it was parked up. We did not know until we tried to pull away and immediately realised there was an issue. When the spring snapped it dug into the sidewall of the - 1 week old - tyre. Deep joy but at least it did not happen at speed. The RAC recovered us to their garage and we had a new spring fitted inside an hour. Once home I then later replaced the spring on the other side, which took me about 2 hours. I'm not sure about the Merc but would imagine you would need spring compressors to remove and refit the spring. Also, if you are not familiar with this process, please take care. Once the spring is compressed it is retaining a lot of energy and if the compressor lets go it could ruin your day. I'm sure there are members on here who will have specific information on the CLS though.

 

[Lit91]

Time for eibach springs

In all seriousness though, today's road quality is the worst I've seen in the UK, never thought that such well developed country would end up with roads like that.

Holidays in Cyprus & Spain put UK roads to shame, feels like there's a need for international aid for UK roads - with one of those charity adverts for poor UK motorists!

 

[rifiki]

It appears that springs are of very poor quality. I gave driven 100,000 of mile in middle east, africa etc and only broken 2 springs. Plenty of broken shocks.

 

[grober]

Its to do with the way the springs are made. When they are formed into coils during production internal stresses are produced in the metal. When the springs eventually corrode due to damage of their protective coating small surface cracks develop and these act as a focus for the internal stress causing the crack/s to get bigger and eventually the spring fails. There are lots of ways to mitigate this effect by "post winding" heat treatment to release the stress and shot peening the surface to prevent cracks forming------ but all that costs money!

 

[chinamanuk]

I had broken spring in a BMW 320, BMW M3, RX8.....

Driving mostly in London with pot holes don't help. Most of the time I didn't even notice until it start rattling or steering slightly off.

 

[14emerc]

I also, just left home and driven 60yrd and bang. This was in the Summer, some say the winter is the time most go. This was a back sping and not too bad to remove and replace, did them both.