Octavia: Rear spring replacement

[OctaviaBuzz]

Despite Skoda UK's failure to acknowledge a common part failure, we all know that half of us have had or will have a spring snapping on us at some point. My O/S/R spring snapped about 3 inches from the end as shown in part 6 below. I used only really common tools, and replaced both my rears with KYB OE specification springs sourced from ebay at £74 delivered. I forgot to take pictures when i replaced the O/S/R spring, but luckily remembered before i started the N/S/R so have a few pics to illustrate.

Apologies if this is covered in the haynes manual, or elsewhere. I looked for hours for help and found only a few tips here on Briskoda.

1) First up, jack the car up at the jacking point on the sill. You cannot jack it up on the beam, as you will see shortly.

2) Remove the wheel. At this point there are 2 ways to proceed. 1 involves spring compressors, which most people don't have. The other requires EITHER, a socket set, or a spanner and wrench. So lets proceed with the spanner shall we? (If you don't have a spanner in your tool kit, why are you even reading this?)

3) The reason you must jack up from the sill, is that the rear axle needs to drop a good few inches as illustrated.

4) There's only a single bolt going through the bottom of that shock absorber. The end of it will have started to rust so you'll want to spray some WD40 on it before you tackle removing it. I used the wee jack that came with the car to take a little of the weight of that axle, placing it under the spring. Otherwise you'll have a pig of a time getting the bolt out with all that weight on it.

5) With the bolt out, you can take the jack away, and the axle will drop a few inches under its own weight. you can then add a bit of your own weight by leaning down on it (i had an assistant pushing down from the outside of the car, an i just pulled the spring and the rubber cone it sits round downwards and outwards away from the exhaust silencer. It literally just pulls straight off the car as lowering the axle by removing the shock absorber bolt takes all the weight off the spring.

6) Compare your old and new springs. Apart from the bleeding obvious big chunk missing from the end, i think its reasonable to assume the new spring is the same as the old. Those paint blobs are Skodas own mystery system of marking the poundage of the springs. I'm pretty sure that all Octavias use the same poundage on the rear springs, with the exception of the vRS, which uses slightly shorter and presumably stiffer springs, and of course the scout, which is a much taller beast.

7) Remove the rubber cone from the old spring, give it a clean, inspect it, then if ok, refit it to the top of the new spring. This picture was taken before i had cleaned it, and then treated it to a wee bit of autoglym rubber and vinyl treatment to keep it in good condition for a bit longer hopefully. The top and bottom of the spring were indistinguishable, and the rubber cone fitted both ends of the spring perfectly, so i simply held the spring with the writing the right way up' and fitted to the car on that basis.

8) Refitting is the exact opposite of removal. With the spring in place just spin the spring round until it finds a nice comfortable position. Its plain to see where it fits best at the bottom. Again, i found it helpfull to have a mate lean on the axle while i wiggled the spring into place. And again, that wee jack comes in handy to hold it up when you are aligning the holes to refit the bolt through the shock absorber. Some folk would put a wee spot of loctite on the bolt once its tightened into place, but given the pressure its under, i cant for the life of me imagine it being able to work loose. Once it was all done i took a wee pic showing an increased ride height of about 2cm. I've been for a 10 mile test drive and all is well. also, i re-measured when i got back, and the springs had settled back down, possibly even lowering by as much as 10mm over the original standard springs.

(picture after settling to go here as soon as i've taken one)

If anyone has any doubts about doing this job, don't worry. It took me a mere 40 minutes to do both, and i was taking pictures as i went. Its as easy as an air filter change. 1 bolt. That's all you need to unscrew. Please don't pay a garage £50 to replace your rear springs. Same to anyone lowering their car. Do the rears yourself even if you don't have the confidence to do the much more complicated front ones. If anyone lives in or near the west of Scotland, i'd happily help you change them.

Edited 4 September, 2008 by OctaviaBuzz

[OctaviaBuzz]

Looking at other guides, i see there appears to be no standard as far as picture sizes?

Some of the car forums i use insist on pictures being now more than 640pixels wide, and out of habit i've resized them to that standard. If it helps, i can repost the pictures above with a better/clearer resolution. I still have the original larger pictures, so could make another set at say 800pixels wide (i'll maintain the aspect ratios) if folk are happy with that? Or even bigger if folks monitors allow? Ive got a very large monitor, so i never really know what fits on 'normal' sized screens lol

[DGW]

6) Compare your old and new springs. Apart from the bleeding obvious big chunk missing from the end, i think its reasonable to assume the new spring is the same as the old. Those paint blobs are Skodas own mystery system of marking the poundage of the springs. I'm pretty sure that all Octavias use the same poundage on the rear springs, with the exception of the vRS, which uses slightly shorter and presumably stiffer springs, and of course the scout, which is a much taller beast.

There are at least 13 different part numbers for rear springs for the various Octavia models so it is worth checking that you get the correct replacements.

[OctaviaBuzz]

There are at least 13 different part numbers for rear springs for the various Octavia models so it is worth checking that you get the correct replacements.

Worth noting that any rear springs from a similar Octavia (vrs and scout excluded, will physically fit though. Its a question of how firm they'll be. However, i agree that there are lots of different sets of OE ones(hence the mystery paint blob codes), and therefore lots of slightly different poundages. And then theres the lowering springs from all the different manufacturers out there. I would only replace a pair, unless it was a single i'd ordered that i knew for definite would match the one on there already. I should probably have said that i was fitting KYB springs, and therefore replaced the rear pair, and would not have considered just changing one for a different brand. As i noted above, i'm pretty sure they sit 10mm lower than the originals, despite being sold as OE spec parts.

I've used lots of Kayaba stuff, and found it to be very good value for money and the materials and workmanship faultless.

I guess what i'm saying is that you should always change a pair, that way you dont really have to worry if they are ever so slightly higher/lower/firmer than the old/broken ones. And if you are fitting lowering springs then its probably irrelevant to you that Skoda have lots of different part numbers Thanks for spotting that though. I was that concerned with getting the pictures in the right order i may not have been concentrating on the text content of the how to. I'll concentrate next time

[QuattroDave]

Thanks for the write up, appreciate this thread is a good few years old and the pics are missing so I thought I'd upload a couple of photo's I took whilst changing mine.

 

I can confirm that it takes about an hour to do both depending on how rusty the end of the bolt is!

 

 

I didn't have a useful second pair of hands when I did mine so instead I used the second jack and placed it infront of the rear spring and wound it up until the spring could be pulled out.  Changeover was easy as.  Place the rubber top mount on the new spring, set the top with the rubber mount into place and loop in the bottom of the spring into place.

 

[STSKODA]

Hi where did you get that spring? Is it the same stiffness and ride height as the original?

[sensiblejohn]

Afternoon All

 

I'm planning to replace the rear springs and shock absorbers on my 2011 VRS TDI estate as it's sagging and bottoming out very easily.

 

It looks relatively simple to do, although I am sure i'll complicate it... ! I'm planning to replace both springs, shocks and bump stops at the same time... is this over the top? Is it worth dismantling and inspecting everything or better to do the whole lot at the same time?

 

What's really confusing me is the part numbers for the new bits... GSF have two different shock absorbers listed, and 2 different springs... I don't want to dismantle the car to find that I haven't got the right bits to put it back together!

 

Any advice welcome!

 

Cheers, John