Hi all. I was driving the Octavia the other day when I noticed that it was making a funny noise from the N/S front wishbone. When I turned the wheel it would make a sound of stretching then a sudden "bong" kind of sound, like hitting a coil spring with a bit of wood. It suddenly stopped so I though all was well until the past few days when it had been making a sound like there was a spanner vibrating under the bulk head. I removed the wheel only to find everything was looking fine. I thought I would just check the springs to see if they had moved or were corroded when I found half a complete turn of the coil had snapped off. This was hitting the casing and was vibrating causing the sound.

I called Skoda and asked if they had ever heard of it before and the lady at the customer services said she had never heard of one shattering in all her time there. On examination it looks like it had been fractured for a while and finally broke off as there is old rust on part of it and new on the other. I am going to take some photo's of it and may send it to Skoda to see what their opinion is. I recon a 4yr old car with 38k on the clock and a full Skoda history shouldn't experience a problem like this. Has anyone else had this happen to them?

Cheers

Yup

a neighbour has got an 02 peugeot 206 ,this year he had one front spring go , then the other one about 3 months later , i think he got the first one changed as a good will gesture from peugeot but had to pay for the other spring but got the labour for free , i've seen it a few times at work also (Ford)

The spring may have not been painted / coated properly and it has corroded causing the break or it has had one hell of an impactforced on it.

At work, we use springs in our press tools. If the paint / coating comes off this reveals the metal which is then prone to corrosion. Many a time this is the cause of our press tools failing. Also if to much weight is applied (impact) to the spring causing it to become coil bound and over stretch the spring, weakening its properties, then bang.

Our springs come with a salt spray requirement of 50 hours or so, but other liquids can cause the springs paint / coatings to flake off.

It's not happened to me, but I've heard of it happening before. It's usually basically down to one of 3 things:-

1) As MLuton says (qv).

2) A stress crack in the coil.

3) Bad heat treatment.

Same thing happened to the girlfriends Polo about 6 months back.:thumbdwn:

Hi all. Thanks for the feedback, I thought I was the only one who had it happen to them! More on the Saga, not good but soon will be fixed, again. A well known parts supplier in my home town supplied me with a set of springs at £35 + Vat each which I thought was great considering Skoda wanted £53.50 + Vat each. I ordered them and got them in and fitted by a friend on sunday. When fitted I realised to my horror they had supplied me the ones for a standard Octavia 1.8 non turbo and my car looks like a bloody 4x4 from the front. I was not best pleased to say the least. At this stage I must point out that I asked the dealer three times if they were for the VRS as it is lower than the standard cars plus my friend who picked them up also asked if they were sure they were for the VRS. I went in to see the supplier to advise them they would be getting them back and they said they would try and sort the new ones for me. When the employee checked in their parts book they said that these were the only ones listed for the Octavia and were probably to cover all the range. She rung up their further supplier only to find out they can't supply them for the VRS and it is a main dealer part only. The person she was on the phone to asked her which book she was referencing the springs from and she replied "the 2000 one". Not bad huh, 6 years out of date and a good year before they even had made the VRS. Needless to say I have now ordered the specific VRS springs from Skoda Yeovil and have to pay to get them fitted again. I checked with Skoda that they were specifically for the VRS and they quoted if there is one voilet dot and four yellow on the coil then they are specific to the VRS. Moral of the story: If it looks too good to be true it probably is. 2nd Moral of the story: Don't trust retards with information that is six years out of date!