Need a Bounce Back...

"bwp240" (bwp240) 07/13/2015 at 12:14 • Filed to: Boing Boing, It Got All Broke

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Clever Title, Spring has broke, It is now summer. Shocking!

Mr. Saturn decided to break again...

This time it appears that the part of the bottom part of the Spring that goes around the shock has broken off. It has formed a new hold on the strut/bottom shock joint (<- close enough).

So far the car has been drive-able around town, I have not had to commute more than a couple miles to the grocery store expect for the 40 mile trip I had to do from the airport when I found this out.

The RR is about 1 inch lower than the LR and there is no rubbing of the tire. The shocks look normal and do not seem to be hyper compressed or extended. The only issue has been the occasional pothole causing the spring to compress around the RR strut, but I have been trying my best to avoid those.

I have 2 main questions about this situation

1.) What sort of repair am I looking at. To me it looks like I need to get a replacement spring and just feed it over the shock. Is there anything I am overlooking (of course it is alway more complicated than it looks). Unfortunately, I have no capability to fix it in an apartment complex so...

2.) Approximately how much am I looking at for a repair.

Below is the LR spring for comparison

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > bwp240 07/13/2015 at 12:26

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The spring retainer plate looks like it’s trashed. Despite someone I know having an L-series, I’ve never been into a rear spring sort of replacement. That being said, most of the time a spring retainer plate being present means the strut removes as a unit - so you’ll need the whole strut off the car. It may be cheapest to buy a complete strut with a spring already on it. There is no good way to feed the spring back onto the strut in place, I don’t think - you could try spring compressors, but it would be insanely hard to get the retainer plate off and replaced in place while doing that, and with your rear shocks probably due, it just doesn’t make sense.

DasWauto > bwp240 07/13/2015 at 12:36

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You’ll have to replace the shock. You can most likely re-use the spring but as Ramblinrover mentioned they’re likely cheapest to buy as a pre-built strut unit (shock + spring). Ideally you’d replace both struts but just that right one will do in a pinch. You can easily do it in a parking lot with basic tools and a jack but otherwise I’m guessing a shop will charge you an hour of labour (for both, not each if you’re lucky).