Spring Problem?

K

ksimpson

Member
Hi,

My wife was driving our 1.6 FSI Sport the other day and hit a pretty harmless pothole. However, she heard a clunk and a piece of metal hitting the ground. She got out of the car and found what looked like a piece of spring (half moon shaped). Whether this was off the car on just something she drove over, we're not too sure.

The car was driving fine otherwise. I took the passenger side front wheel off when she got home (this is where she heard the clunk from). Everything looked fine and I couldn't see any evidence of a broken spring.

However, the next day, there is a loud creaking noise coming from the front passenger wheel well. It only happens when the car is going slowly and the wheels are at quarter lock on either side. It's there when the car isn't moving if I wriggle the steering wheel at quarter lock. It's a bit coincidental that it's happening in the same side she heard the clunk and the metal hitting the ground.

Are the springs known to break on the A2? My father has done all his own maintenance for over 40 years and has never seen a broken spring. I'm taking the car up to him tomorrow night to have a closer look.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
 
Hi Ken
Broken springs are a known problem on A2's (and many other cars) see link -
http://www.a2oc.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6923&highlight=broken+spring
The motoring press relate the failures to the (cost cutting) design of modern springs which are no longer ground flat at each end with the last coils tapering to nothing. This old design seemed to give a more even seating of the spring and reduce the stresses in the end coils.

Cheers Spike
 
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Photos

Here are a couple of photos showing the broken spring on our car from last year. The car drove fairly normally apart from the odd clonk and grind when manoeuvring at low speed.

Mark
 
Hi,

Had a good look tonight and the spring is broken. There is a piece missing off the very top of the spring. The piece my wife picked off the ground was off the car.

The spring needs to be replaced and probably the bearing the sits above it. Is this something that I can tackle myself or am I better off going to my dealer?

As I mentioned above, my father has done his own maintenance for over 40 years and this is the first time he's seen a broken spring.

How common is this on the A2?
 
Anyone who is fairly competent at mechanics will be able to tackle this no problem
i had my springs changed 18 months ago , lucky for you the passenger side is easier to do as on the drivers side has a plastic tank thats in the way of removal and has to be removed to ease the job .....
The other thing i can remember is you will need to compress the spring when fitting the new one to the damper so you will need a specialist tool for this ........
Good Luck .... ;)
 
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