.

LoFi

ICBM said:

Is it the coil that's broken, or has it punched through the mount? That can happen on older cars when a bit of rust gets in. If so it may be an economic write-off.

Yeah, that's what happened to me - speed bump, loud bang, car went very funny. Parked up ASAP, rang the AA who said "FFS don't move it!".

FX_Munkee

If you'd had a BMW it's safety features* would have prevented you driving it.
Alternatively I've had a rear spring go on my Alfa and the handling characteristics barely changed


*destroyed lower tie rod, spring remnants jammed against inside of the wheel and tyre in contact with wheel arch liner!

ICBM

SimonC said:

If you've ever have Renault, you soon get used to driving around with broken coil springs.

Yes, I had one go on my Scenic this year - it must have lost about a turn, but I didn't even notice until the MOT - although the chap said it was recent, since the broken end was still shiny. No change in the apparent ride or handling of the car at all.

LoFi said:

ICBM said:

Is it the coil that's broken, or has it punched through the mount? That can happen on older cars when a bit of rust gets in. If so it may be an economic write-off.

Yeah, that's what happened to me - speed bump, loud bang, car went very funny. Parked up ASAP, rang the AA who said "FFS don't move it!".

That's why I thought it was worth mentioning - Ben8010 initially said the car had dropped a long way, but didn't say that it seemed to drive OK. Since it did it's almost certainly the spring that's broken.

As dern said, (assuming the spring stays correctly constrained in the cup) it's not *that* serious - the spring constant stays the same. If the mount fails it's a very different thing though, the spring then doesn't do anything and the car will just be resting on the bump stop. That will make the handling quite dangerous even if you can tolerate the ride...

Grunfeld

I'm not sure how kosher it is but stuffing a load of tennis balls into the busted spring is surprisingly effective. 
On a Micra at any rate.

m_c

The fact the car drove home with no noticeable issues, generally means nothing catastrophic has happened. Combined with the car in question, and it's very unlikely that anything catastrophic will happen.

Some cars, a spring failure can lead to some quite catastrophic failures, but on a Corsa-C the worst is it sits a bit lower. I've only ever seen one, where the spring had wound itself over the carrier, but by the time we found it, it had quite obviously been working it's way down for a while, as the scrape marks had rusted.

Several Peugeot/Cireon's are bad for springs coming of the strut carrier, and rubbing on tyres. Fiestas/Focuses are the same, but seem to be more prone to sticking into the tyre than rubbing on it.

speshul91

Either way i wouldn't risk it, if an accident happened the law would come down like a ton of bricks especially if they knew you already knew. 

Wolfetone

CarpeDiem said:

I agree with @speshul91 - don't drive it. It is potentially dangerous to yourself and others. You may be able to file a compensation claim against the authority that is responsible for the road.

I doubt it....

dern

Initially the spring will be constrained by the strut so it won't go far in the short term. I'd definitely be ok with driving it to a local garage if it was mine and I was going to keep it steady.

speshul91

dern said:

Initially the spring will be constrained by the strut so it won't go far in the short term. I'd definitely be ok with driving it to a local garage if it was mine and I was going to keep it steady.

To a garage yeah i would too, i would be driving very steady though, one speedhump a bit too quick is still risky though. 

Ben8010

Yeah I've got no reason to drive it now it's the weekend so defo not gonna risk it now

Modulus_Amps

Get it sorted, I had a broken coil that ended up rubbing into the tire causing a flat after driving 3 miles with it, so brand new tire and new coil... dont be like me

CabbageCat

I drove for six months with the off rear coil broken. Got it fixed recently for 60 quid. It's not a big job. You can do it yourself with two jacks and a socket wrench. Look on youtube for instructions.

VimFuego

I'm now imagening Jack Palance and Jack Black operating a mobile car mechanic buisness.

Ben8010

Just had it up on the jack now with the wheel off. Turns out the coil isn't broken but it has somehow got free from its mount at the bottom. So theres still more than half of the coil doing its job which explains why it didn't drive too differently. Booked in to the garage tomorrow morning.

ICBM

Wolfetone said:

CarpeDiem said:

I agree with @speshul91 - don't drive it. It is potentially dangerous to yourself and others. You may be able to file a compensation claim against the authority that is responsible for the road.

I doubt it....

It depends - from memory, you may have a claim, but only if the council had already been made aware of the pothole and had failed to fix it within a certain amount of time (a week, possibly - not sure).

A friend of mine had a tyre and wheel wrecked by a pothole and made a successful claim. Although to be fair to the council, they probably didn't think it was a high priority because his usual road position when driving makes me think it was more of a hazard to cyclists than cars...

robgilmo

Nobody will say yes go ahead and drive it, however a broken spring isn't the end of the world, there are plenty of cars out there driving around on broken springs that only get noticed at MOT time. I drove my Saab around for months and months with a broken front spring. I knew it was broken but it didn't change the handling of the car one bit. Had many a car come into the work shop with broken springs, some drove fine, some came in crawling.If you drove it home I would be tempted to drive it at least to a garage to get it sorted.

robgilmo

Ben where do you live? If you are close to me I have spring compressors and tools to get you back on the road safely. 

Ben8010

@robgilmo now I've seen the the spring isn't broken and just free from the mount I've wound it back up as far as I can and am gonna drive it to the garage seeing as it's not too far. Hopefully nothings broke and it just needs putting back together, but my pessimistic side is telling me that something must have broken for it to free the mount in the first place.

I'm in Bradford. The lad at the garage said when I rung them that if I'm not happy with the fix quote they will let me drive it away without fixing it. If the suspension leg is fucked I have a mate who can source me another one and will help me fit it as well.

Ben8010

Got it fixed today, turns out the spring was broken. Thanks for the offer @robgilmo, appreciate it!

boogieman

ICBM said:

Wolfetone said:

CarpeDiem said:

I agree with @speshul91 - don't drive it. It is potentially dangerous to yourself and others. You may be able to file a compensation claim against the authority that is responsible for the road.

I doubt it....

It depends - from memory, you may have a claim, but only if the council had already been made aware of the pothole and had failed to fix it within a certain amount of time (a week, possibly - not sure).

A friend of mine had a tyre and wheel wrecked by a pothole and made a successful claim. Although to be fair to the council, they probably didn't think it was a high priority because his usual road position when driving makes me think it was more of a hazard to cyclists than cars...

How do you prove it was the particular pothole that caused the damage if you've driven the car away? I can understand if the car's marooned in the road with a busted spring and tyre, not far from the pothole. Can't imagine any council paying out for something that's not 100% provable though.