Broken front spring

Chris B

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2001
Location
N. central Illinois
TDI
2002 Jetta Wagon 5 spd
Just an FYI heads up for ya 'all that live in the "Rust Belt"....if you have your suspension apart for new struts, take a GOOD look at your springs. I installed my second set of Monroe Sensa-Traks about 10K miles ago and while looking at the front springs, I noticed an area where the coating was gone and the spring was rusting pretty good right at the top where it sits on the spring cup. I thought "that's going to break right there someday", but since I didn't have new springs and I needed to get to work, I put it all back together.

Well, the other day I was backing out of the driveway and heard this loud "POP...SPROINGGGG" as I cut the wheel. Uh-ohhh. I pulled off the wheel later that day after work and found a nice semi-circle piece of spring sitting in the lower spring cup on the strut and the top of the spring riding right on the fender sheet metal. Guess where it broke.....yep.:mad:

A quick order to IDParts.com for a set of the 2blue/2white VR6 wagon springs was sent and I borrowed the spring compressors from a co-worker (again). Luckily I've not sold the Liberty CRD yet (bought the wife a '10 Outback), so I was driving it for the meantime). Got the springs and started to replace them. Got the left (broken) side done and started on the right. Took the second spring out of the wrapper and found that it was the WRONG SPRING - had 1pink/1green dot. *** is this spring????!!!? Right label on the outside, wrong spring on the inside.

This was on a Saturday, but I sent an e-mail to IDParts and got a response first thing on Monday that they were shipping me a new spring next-day. Got the spring on Tuesday and finished up the job. They even sent a RETURN SHIPPING label for the wrong spring!:) Evidently it must have been packaged wrong from VW somehow. It's a bummer to get a wrong part, but nice to get quick service and no hassle from a vendor.

Funny thing is that my first car, a 1980 Rabbit bought used in '86, had a broken front spring, circa '87. My second car, a 1993 Saturn SL, went 156,000 miles with no spring problems. The Jetta is my 3rd car, a VW, and a broken spring..... funny, no?

Check your springs.

Chris
 

fnj2

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 1, 1999
Location
Wellfleet, Massachusetts, USA
This happened to me with my Scirocco many years ago. I live on a VERY bumpy dirt road. One day I went over all the bumps just fine and pulled into my driveway. Just as I turned off the engine there was what seemed at the time to be an ear-splitting explosion and a cloud of smoke shot out in the general area of the engine compartment. I was really startled ... ok ... afraid. When it became plain nothing was on fire and I worked up the courage to open the hood, it became evident the smoke was just years of dust from the general area of the spring.
 
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