What is the coil spring breakage problem on Mercs all about??

graham power

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leics
Your Mercedes
vito van 2006 model109cdi
has anyone had vibration problems with vito van, i suspect a cv joint going but wonderd as with merc coil spring breakage weather this is a common problem
 

grober

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W204 C200cdi estate
as the owner of a vito van 7 years from new the only serious problem i had was over a short period all 4 coils broke in exactly the same place the top of the first coil shears and the van droops slightly to its creadit the van remained useable each time non mb springs were only 80 pnds each and were much thicker than mb ones, labour was just one hour from non mb garage easy job for any mechanic

Why should you need to do this at all :confused: when it can be avoided by better spring manufacturing techniques which would add very little more the purchase price of the car when new . The springs might be £80 each but the labour costs bump things up considerably. Factor in the fact you should probably replace both sides to maintain handling balance/ride height and that concentric damper spring strut assemblies are not the easiest to deal with. Perhaps if the springs were £100 each and lasted a good bit longer that might be better?
 
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dbanbery

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1995 R129 SL500
I always thought it was to do with the fact that cars are generally heavier, and the suspension setups are different, placing the spring under an unnatural amount of preload even while the wheel is off the ground.

my case in point for this would be an E87 BMW 1 series i worked on a while back, where to replace a front spring you needed to use two pairs of spring compressors in two stages to get it on the strut. ridiculously preloaded.

all other things mentioned before i can see, especially the manurfacturing process. its an example of inflation - the automotive equivilent of bags go crisps getting smaller and smaller to maintain their price point [that still increases]

a number of cars i have had in the past have had snapped springs, never had a merc with the issue yet, although the dads W203 needs a front spring i think. the SL had a full set of 4 springs about 4 or 5 years ago, costing the previous owner about £800 parts and labour.

AND speed bumps - i think they are responsible for snapped springs, kanckered ball joints, and snapped spring perches [on earlier cars, had a W201 which had a snapped spring perch]
 
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drmw

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Your Mercedes
M6 Cab - prior to that, SL63 AMG, A-M V8 Vantage, SL55, SL500 and many more
Had one go on Thunderbrird II (Saab) - one of the issue they had was the rotating cup at the top (into which the spring locates) at some stage decides it's fed up with rotating as much and often when the car is parked, the spring is under a lot of stress as it tries to wind up further/unwind (delete as appropriate) then bang
 

vanbasten

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Essex
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E class 1998 2.4
Front spring replaced

My driver side front spring top perch sheared off last week, causing the spring to fall out . Luckily i was only going slow at time .
I was lucky enough to find a auto mechanic who also welded and was mobile .
I brought the top perch replacement from merdeces dealer cost £24 .
The mechanic charged £80 to grind off old perch and weld in new one and to replace spring . which i thought was very reasonable , the mechanic said he had done may of these springs on the merc . Mine is a E class 2.4 Avantgarde by the way .
 
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grober

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W204 C200cdi estate
W210 front spring perches- very common problem- hence the MB approved repair which uses pop rivets-really!
 

Frontstep

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T210 320cdi
Yep I have had one perch riveted on and all springs have been replaced due to breakage.
 

GEORGEROV

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W210 front spring perches- very common problem- hence the MB approved repair which uses pop rivets-really!

From MOT manual : Welded repairs to highly stressed components such as steering/suspension arms, rods, levers etc are not normally acceptable, other than where the
component is made up of sections that are welded together. In these cases
the repair should appear to be as strong as the original design.
 

Xtractorfan

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S class
It's a combination of factors.

As Malcolm points out in an earlier post, most Mercedes springs fail in the bottom coil. The design of the spring seat means road crud accumulates in the lower coils and combined with rain and winter salt, provides a nice corrosive poultice.

It doesn't take much corrosion to precipitate failure. Nowadays spring production is a much cheaper process thanks to manufactures eliminating a couple of previously very advantageous steps. Originally coil roadsprings would have their end coils closed and ground and would then be 'scragged'. Scragging involved compressing the spring to solid - way beyond it's normal operating range - to take the material beyond it's yield point and achieve a more even stress distribution throughout the wire. With the elimination of both these steps, modern springs have very high stress concentration at the coil surface - where a very small amount of corrosion will provoke a stress raiser sufficient to provoke fracture.

These factors combined with the parlous state of our potholed roads are at the root of the increase in spring failures. My local garage has found they are replacing more roadsprings than brake discs these days.

Interesting to compare the recently failed spring from my ten year old SLK...

P1040300.jpg


...with the fifty year old one from my Daimler SP250....

P1050561.jpg


After cleaning up, the Daimler spring went back on the car. :D

I love scrolling down on that pic and the spings seemingly rolling apart..:mad::eek::D
 

ray paget

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ruislip middlesex
Your Mercedes
124 estate 250d diesel
Hi iam ray paget and own a 1990 merc w124 both front springs seriously corroded. Need replacing. has anyone got or know the part No;- for these items
 

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