Dear friends, I found this spring on my rear near side suspension arm. I heard a bit of noise so had a look and look what I found! I just couldn't believe it. The car drives fine but it looks like the broken bit is quite rusty so may have been like that for some time?!? I don't even know how this would be possible. I was so shocked because I look after the car so we'll. what do you all think? I will fix this as fast as I can, do you think it's a tricky job? Thank you all
Looks like its been broken some time, likely it was caught so you didn't notice it until it managed to move.
Not too major to do it as long as the bolts required to remove it will undo.
One of my rear springs failed in a similar way, but not quite as far down the coil. They aren't too bad to change, once you've released the bottom damper bolt (with that corner jacked up obviously) then the whole trailing arm on that side will swing down allowing the spring to be removed and replaced. Just make sure that the replacement spring that you get matches the original style with the wire diameter that tapers down at the two ends (and by that I mean the actual diameter of the spring material, not the diameter of the coils formed by the spring), 'cos if it doesn't it won't fit right! The thin rubber lower spring seat will also likely need changing.WP_20170407_18_23_12_Pro.jpg
Fairly common these days, springs never used to get the work out they do on our 'modern' roads with all their pot-holes and speed bumps.
On the plus side, as Paul shows, the rear springs on your model are one of the easiest to change. You can do both in in under an hour in you've done it before and not much longer if its your first time. You don't even need spring compressors for it, but there are rubber caps that the spring sits on that I would suggest replacing at the same time as they wear through over time.
So impressive, these cars are so well designed and easy to maintain!
Well, I don't think that everything about the design is well thought out to be honest (front suspension top caps filling with water and corroding, or the front knuckle bolts rusting solid into the knuckle being two examples which can make the front suspension a real headache to work on, as well as the top mount bearings which aren't greased well enough from new and rust/ seize up with age) but the rear suspension in comparison is fairly straightforward.
As for the rear springs, you may also need to unbolt the rear anti-roll bar from the trailing arms to allow the arm to drop far enough to get the spring out but that's only 2x 10mm bolts for the clamps on either side.