First to guess what this is....

[Welly]

This just fell off my car...........

[steve_earwig]

Come on, give us a chance - how big is it and is it made out of metal, rubber, plastic or wood?

They have a lot of these sort of threads over on the yoyo forum - "can anyone identify this part that I found on the garage floor under my brand new Rav this morning?" Hours of entertainment

[DaiRees]

Oooh ooh, me, sir, me!!

[Welly]

And the Winner, by Private Message no less, is Dai Rees (to be fair it is a sh*t photo).

It is indeed a snapped spring!

A couple of weeks ago I heard a loud "boing" at the back, I was doing 70mph and assumed something had flicked up off the road and twatted the underneath. As soon as I stopped had a quick looky and everything looked fine.

Then I kept hearing a "jingly" "chinging" noise going over bumps.....got underneath and found a heat shield was kinda close to the eggsauce at one point and assumed this was causing this metallic noise......fixed that bit and the noise remained even further poking around at the bottom of the 'cup' that holds the road spring was this piece of steel! yanked it out and saw it was the last part of the spring has snapped off.

Price to purchase 2 x new springs?............£150.00

Have I fixed it yet?......no.

[steve_earwig]

Oh ffs It seems to happen to a most fairly new cars these days, I don't think it's completely down to the roads getting worse, I think they're making them out of flimsier steel to get the weight down so they're not lasting very long (just enough to get them out of warranty...)

[Welly]

Oh ffs It seems to happen to a most fairly new cars these days, I don't think it's completely down to the roads getting worse, I think they're making them out of flimsier steel to get the weight down so they're not lasting very long (just enough to get them out of warranty...)

You're bang on the money, they are made from (and I quote my Mechanic) "monkey metal".

I've been driving for 25 years and have suffered no broken springs until the last 5 years; in which I've had FOUR let go on a safety note I think it's appalling to cheapen such an important part especially when the front ones can send you off the road in a flash. I know we always seem to see these snap when parked up but I did hear of a Renault Laguna snapping a front at 70mph and bursting the tyre.

[DaiRees]

I did hear of a Renault Laguna snapping a front at 70mph and bursting the tyre.

That happened to a friend's Laguna, really not good.

[Welly]

I did hear of a Renault Laguna snapping a front at 70mph and bursting the tyre.

That happened to a friend's Laguna, really not good.

Yes my Garage operative was telling me about some bloke's Laggy that snapped a spring, ripped the tyre, and sent him into a field at high speed he was telling me this when I picked up the 406 having had a new front spring, which rubbed on the tyre

[Doggy]

Early Manta 'B''s aka Cavalier Coupes used to go through rear ones on a regular basis. Odd thing was, they only ever effectively lost one coil and it made no discernable difference to the handling. Dropped the rear end a gnat's but you had to measure it to tell. Fortunately this was a generation ago, when 'improving' things generally meant making them better.

[Ares]

umbelivable,amongst all other things,now i need to put possible snapping springs on my Fear list

[Captain Jack]

I live in fear of when my front suspension springs snap..... 160k on original ones still. My previous 406's driver's side failed at 145k.

[rwb]

Jasper5 spotted rust bubbles/patches on my springs while doing the strut top bearings, so I had new ones in while we were at it. That was at 199k.

Have been gathering a variety of suspension noises recently

[Welly]

Just ordered my new springs, where I work we have accounts with trade motor factors and none of them could source the rear springs for me

Speaking to Volvo it became clear why there was a problem; there's 13 different springs for my model each spring is 'matched' to the damper and the anti-roll bar thickness. It all stems from whoever ordered the car in the first place (you used to be able to specify how soft/medium/hard you wanted it) @DaiRees: were you asked about this when you ordered yours?

Anyhoo they MUST be dealer-only and matched to my chassis number, £150.00, and delivered to the door. There's a new garage opened next door to my work and I've been getting along nicely with the owner, they're pretty quiet so were putting my car up on his new MOT shaker-plate thing to check over the whole sussy for piece of mind.

[DaiRees]

@DaiRees: were you asked about this when you ordered yours?

I didn't spec mine Welly, it was ordered and registered as the dealer's demonstrator.

Saying that, if I had ordered it I would probably have chosen slightly softer springs.

[Welly]

Mine started out as a Demonstrator too at a Dealer in Newcastle, it's written in the handbook. I don't know what it was ordered with but it's rock-hard, then again no-one ordered the heated seats (£350.00) so god knows

The dealer I use for parts couldn't really help with looking at the factory spec so I've tried asking on the Volvo Forum ......but you know how useful that is I ventured into their 'lounge' last week with something I thought was quite useful to know........bejesus it was like walking into a busy Pub covered head to toe in sh*t, holding a severed Pigs Head in the air. Silence.