Old Dude

Replying to an old topic here but it may help some searcher some day. Have a Mk1 4x4 hatch. Had the same sourcing problem with all advertised after market offers being far too weak. Quinton Hazell do an excellent replacement for the official Two Blues, Two Whites. It is their part number QCS7426 and cost me £78 each in Feb 2025.

Final post to myself on this topic, however it has vital info for anyone wanting to fit new rear springs to this model. The springs that I was referred to were being widely sold using the correct VW/AUDI part number, but were nothing like them and completely unsuitable. The suppliers are collecting and refunding for them. My garage tracked some correct replacements in Germany but they said they could not send them out of the EU (?). They did however direct the garage to a possible UK supplier. Success!!!! Quinton Hazell sell a perfect replacement for the VW/AUDI rear coil springs identified as 1J9511115G / Two Blues and Two Whites for the Skoda Octavia Mk1 4x4 hatchback. It is Quinton Hazell part number QCS7426.

And here I go again.... After about 9 months of barely tolerating the occasional rear knocking on the car I decided to ask a local 'village, old school garage' to have a look and listen. The noise mostly seemed to be coming from the O/S rear and having given it some thought they concluded that it was the fitting of the spring that was the problem. However the more they delved into things the more suspicious they got, becoming convinced that apart from what appeared to be colateral damage due to mis fitting, the real problem was that the Kilen parts that were definitely suitable replacements, were nothing of the sort. They found that the knocking was the top two coils of each spring banging together. That didn't seem right, the springs were the same and only one side was knocking. They had thought of that and found that the near side had twisted itself out of alignment. Having reseated it properly, it was knocking the same as the other. I suppose that if you are making spares for cars that seem to have disappeared off the face of the Earth, it matters little if they would have done the job or not anyway. The up side is that I have a good correct spring that can be used to compare against any future pretenders

Replying to myself again… I ordered two of the above coil springs and they were delivered promptly. The car was booked in today the 10th June and was collected by the garage. There was no charge, the boss only lives a short distance from me and leaves his car here. He returned my car in the afternoon and told me that having removed the unsatisfactory spring, he found that it was identical to the Kilen 63147 pair he was putting on. He demonstrated the similarity with photos. The new ones were clearly labeled as being the ones for the vehicle. He couldn’t see how he had made a mistake in supplying perceived incorrect one, especially as he’d selected the part by putting my registration number into his supplier's search engine. I agreed with his conclusion but drew his attention to the good Skoda spring he'd taken from the offside. He hadn’t noticed the difference before but agreed that they were nothing like each other and that compared to the Skoda part the others were ********. He asked for the Skoda part number and he said he’d shop around his contacts and meanwhile I should give it a test drive. He said that he thought driving it home was worse than when he’d collected it and that best of all had been when it had been suffering from an unrecognized broken genuine Skoda spring. My impression sdriving it was that it had improved things generally and that in the absence of a real Skoda part it would have to do. I now suspect that previously, the rugged genuine part was unflinching in the face of the potholes and alleged traffic calming measures when approaching my house. That caused the near side weaker spring to be taking all the pain and bouncing around. With matching weaker springs they fared better sharing the load more equally and the only clunk I heard was once and from the off side. My garage friend is now experiencing my frustration as he is continually being told that the springs supplied are the equivalent of the Skoda part even though he has seen that they are hugely different to each other. I don’t expect any better outcome than living with it. Moving house would be excessive and dumping the car is fairly unthinkable as it is now bordering on being a family pet.

That's brilliant, thank you so much. Regards, Dave.

Replying to myself here in the hope that it might help in some way. The Skoda dealer's parts department said that the nearest thing that had ever been on their parts list were orange tagged spring coils that were for the 4x4 turbo estate version of the same car. It didn't help too much because they are out of production too. However, Bilstein do a coil compatible with the estate version, although not with the hatchback. The hatchback's coil was about £40 more than the estate's. Any thoughts anyone?

My car is running just fine having now done a few miles short of 212,000. I bought it from a local Skoda dealer as an ex demonstrator with 4,384 miles on the clock 22 years ago. The years have been passing for me too and I was 80 last year. Recently I put it in the hands of a local, highly recommended garage to have new rear disks and pads installed. They called me to tell me that on inspection they had found the N/S rear coil spring broken. It was no surprise. That one was its third and the O/S was wearing its fourth. I said they should replace it and they did. I soon noticed problems driving up the potholed hill to our house. There was a thump that sounded like the exhaust had a bit of free movement in it. I asked them to check it but was surprised when they said there was nothing wrong with it, or anything else. I decided that it was most likely that the new N/S spring wasn't as beefy as the one it had replaced and crawled under the car with a Vernier caliper to compare them. Just looking was enough to establish the difference. I'm not interested in beating the guy up, I just want to get things sorted so I phoned the local main dealer parts department. They were helpful but said the part was no longer available. The O/S still looks fresh and is labelled with two blue and two white. They told me the part number is IJ9511 15G. I know there is a low chance of getting hold of one but if anyone can suggest some coil springs that will be comparable replacements for the blues and whites, I'll get a pair. Thanks.