Just had cambelt change and service on 2017 1.6tdi saloon. With 2 tyres had little change from a grand and been told I need a new spring(broken) and a shock for rear offside. Don't have the money to get it done at a dealer just now so is this a job I could carry out myself on the driveway. Has anyone on here done this and what makes would you recommend(could maybe do with a slightly uprated set up as I occasionally tow a motorbike trailer.) TIA.

Edited 18 January, 20233 yr by philg25

I have just had all 4 Koni special active shocks and standard springs put on my estate, the shocks are great and I dont think you would benefit from changing the springs.. The rears look simple enough to do yourself but I had my local garage do mine as I was doing all 4 after breaking a front spring..

Rear is really simple:

Jack up and place on stands.

Wheels off.

Lower shock bolts out with Jack under the swing arm to stop it banging open.

Top mount likely behind some trim but easy enough to get to.

Swap top mount to new shock.

Push arm down to release spring.

Replace everything.

 

Both side should be done at the same time especially given the age of the car. Also makes it easier to get the springs out if both shocks are released as you don't have to worry about the roll bar.

Also look up what the torque specs are for the bolts. Likely big Ft rather than little ft (F'ing tight rather than finger tight).

40 minutes ago, MarkyG82 said:

Rear is really simple:

Jack up and place on stands.

Wheels off.

Lower shock bolts out with Jack under the swing arm to stop it banging open.

Top mount likely behind some trim but easy enough to get to.

Swap top mount to new shock.

Push arm down to release spring.

Replace everything.

 

Both side should be done at the same time especially given the age of the car. Also makes it easier to get the springs out if both shocks are released as you don't have to worry about the roll bar.

Also look up what the torque specs are for the bolts. Likely big Ft rather than little ft (F'ing tight rather than finger tight).

Thanks for that, I've done it before on old cars/vans without too much trouble but watched an autodoc video(admittedly on an ocatvia) and it looked overly complicated.

Na. The rear is fairly simple. I've done it on MK2 Octavia, MK3 Octavia (with torsion beam) and Passat (similar/same as superb). Front is more complex.

As always, it a fairly simple job stymied by rusty bolts, difficult access etc! I replaced a rear spring recently. Best way IMO is to drop the lower arm right down so the spring can be inserted without using a spring compressor. I had spring compressors but they wouldn’t fit when on the spring. The pukka VW spring compressors have arms that stick out into the spring but they are quite expensive.

 

For my car than meant undoing the level sensor, and anti roll drop link and the 3 (?) nuts under the wheel hub. Pull lower arm down, insert spring, use jack to push lower arm back up. Make sure the ends of the spring are properly seated in the shaped spring mounts.

 

Also bear in mind that things with rubber bushing, eg shocks, should be bolted up with the suspension in a neutral position. Otherwise the rubber inserts are subject to excessive twisting. So before you start, measure distance from wheel centre to wheel arch with the car empty and on level ground. After replacing the bits and before tightening bolts, use a jack under the wheel hub to compress the suspension until the distance previously measured is set. Then tighten the bolts.

Changed both rear shocks just before Christmas, was easy enough considering it was the first bit of proper spannering I've done in about 20 years.

The only fiddly bit was getting access to the upper mounting nut which is partially hidden behind the inner wheelarch plastic shroud. The shroud is pliable enough to leave insitu rather than taking it off.

 

 

Total cost was £138.00 for shocks, cones and sleeves, however the sleeves were way too small and I ended up re-using the old ones after cleaning them up.

Just got round to doing this and as usual for me it became more of a task than first anticipated. This is down to my lack of preperation(new shocks didn't come with mounts or bump stops so had to order a dd no 6 socket to remove old mount) and fact my front spring broke too. Everything else was pretty straight forward and knuckle scrapes were only damage done. Ended up going for Ridex shocks and eibach springs for £123 delivered from Autodoc. Time will tell how good they are. Thanks for assistance.

Just to pay back the forum for great advice and info over the years, my story is that as my service advised I had a broken top of rear spring (standard suspension 1.4TSI Estate SE technology 10 years old), with tight budget I decided to have a go myself (keen DIYer in other areas) using this forum and you tube videos (like Hey Roman). Watch for all the tools needed like long sockets or 18mm keys sockets/ spanners as they sometimes are not in standard sets. As there was some oil on shock absorber, I decided to change both springs and shock absorbers, together with spring mounting/ spring caps (rubber bits on top and bottom of spring) and new shock absorber top mounts and bump stop kit. Post here about jacking points was very helpful. I went for KYB parts from Autodoc as had difficulty to find spring exactly as my OEM code (not sure if because I have OEM towing kit). As some said the bolts are stretch type so I just bought new one (3 per side - wheel hub, shock absorber and antiroll bar) as Skoda manual advises additional degrees of rotation (like 180deg for some) after specific torque applied. Overall it went fairly smooth, the only real struggle I had to lift the lower arm with car jack after new spring in (proper car jack, not skoda one as as you lift the arm, the skoda jack will tilt risking it will slip in arm rebounding due to new spring - dangerous) to fix the first bolt at wheel hub. The lower arm flexes so I had to do one side of arm and than reposition to do the other. Also had a bit of work on one anti-roll bar bolt but using WD40 penetrant 30min before starting helped with rusty bolts. As Skoda manual says all the bolts should be torqued in wheel loaded position so remember to measure it (with full tank, spare wheel, repair kit) before start. I bought the new bolts/ nuts from Skoda as could not get it sorted quickly online. I used 2 inch pipe as extra handle on my wrench to do the extra 180deg nut turn after 70Nm torque on some bolts - without this extra lever would not be able to turn it. Top mounts came with the bolts already. One strange thing was that after lowering the car the ride height (on both sides) was higher than the wheel loaded position ( I started to worry something went wrong although all looked ok mechanically) but after driving from driveway to the road, all went back to the correct wheel loaded dimensions. Ufff. Another lesson learned - one original VAG shock absorber was shot (not rebounding at all, although car passing MOT and service), shock absorber on other side changed few years ago by what I though good family garage was GS3328R so AFAIK looking online not suitable for Superb (for Golf being lighter). Also inside one of the top mount had a lot of thick white deposit which went powdery once disturbed (aluminium corrosion?) so was happy I bought new mounts. Other thing is I saw that the steel suspension elements on the rear were fairly corroded so I took the bite and cleaned all as far as I could (took me 1.5 days under the car, with multi-tool scraper, hammer, steel brush, brush on multi-drill, hand scraper etc.) In many places the corrosion was a 0.5/1.0mm layer falling off in patches after hammer treatment ) and repainted with rust converter 2 times, now need to do the finish.