MOT Today - could be worse!

[Bumpa]

I took my 2002 2.2 Sport in today to my friendly local garage. He rang me to say the car is fine except a rear spring is broken. I had no idea. There were no funny noises, no clonks and no dodgy handling. Ah well, the bill shouldn't be too big for that. I could have done it myself, but it's simpler to let them get on with it.

Apparently fixing broken springs is one of the commonest jobs they now do. When I started driving in the late sixties it was just about unheard of, but my 2011 VW has only one original spring left, and the Mondeo before that was the same. Is it (A) poor quality springs, or (B) poor quality roads, or (C) low profile tyres making the ride much harsher. I suspect a bit of each.

 

[Paul Rice]

Bring back leaf springs, plenty of tail happy fun with them and they last

 

[Jack Ratt]

Pot holes and hitting speed bumps at too high speed are major causes

 

[t-tony]

Bring back leaf springs, plenty of tail happy fun with them and they last

They're ok when fitted the right way around. Bloody awful when fitted tranverse like Spitfire (rear) and HA Viva (front) amongst others.

Tony.

 

[motco]

You don't say!

 

[ktnez99]

You don't say!

What the heck is this car doing? A routine off Strictly?!?

 

[Sean d]

Make sure he gets a sport spring as 15mm lower, I think they are about £90 each, if it was me I would fit a pair.

 

[t-tony]

What the heck is this car doing? A routine off Strictly?!?

It was known in the trade as "suicide suspension" , I'll leave you to think about that one.

Tony.

 

[Mint]

Make sure he gets a sport spring as 15mm lower, I think they are about £90 each, if it was me I would fit a pair.

Not sure about the rears but certainly the fronts came in at about £90 each with Sopers forum discount a couple of years ago. My front off side had broken, only found out at MOT time.

 

[Bumpa]

Make sure he gets a sport spring as 15mm lower, I think they are about £90 each, if it was me I would fit a pair.

I have just spoken to Rod at the garage and he ordered the spring using the reg. no. so it should be correct, but anyway I have asked him to fit a pair. Thanks for your input Sean.

 

[t-tony]

All parts are ordered from the Reg. No. but unless he ordered from BMW they will not be sport springs for sure. However if he's fitting a pair they should cost around the the same as one Genuine spring and the height of the car won't be that much different and I doubt you'll notice any difference in driving. Just check the wheel arch gap is acceptable.

Tony.

 

[motco]

What the heck is this car doing? A routine off Strictly?!?

Swing axle rear suspension is notorious for the dreaded 'tuck-under' if you dare to brake or even lift-off under heavy cornering. The Herald is a good example and early Triumph Spitfires did it too. Later Spitfires had a modification to stop it - no idea what it was because I lost interest in the Herald chassis based cars after having two Heralds. Appalling cars IMHO, and as strong as a house of cards to boot.

 

[Bumpa]

Triumph actually developed a partial solution to the tuck-under problem in the sixties, but the bean counters decided it was too expensive. They finally implemented two separate solutions in the 70s. The Herald never got either fix and soldiered on with the swing axle to its end.

For the Spitfire they used what they called a swing transverse spring. Basically only the bottom leaf was rigidly fixed to the diff. The other leaves could pivot up and down of the central point. This reduced the roll stiffness and made tuck-under much less likely They fitted a thicker front ARB to compensate.

On the GT6 and Vitesse they went the whole hog, and although the upper link was still the transverse spring, they fitted a lower link and provided the drive shafts with Rotoflex joints. This made the suspension essentially a double wishbone assembly and was a much better solution.

 

[mwpe]

Triumph actually developed a partial solution to the tuck-under problem in the sixties, but the bean counters decided it was too expensive. They finally implemented two separate solutions in the 70s. The Herald never got either fix and soldiered on with the swing axle to its end.

For the Spitfire they used what they called a swing transverse spring. Basically only the bottom leaf was rigidly fixed to the diff. The other leaves could pivot up and down of the central point. This reduced the roll stiffness and made tuck-under much less likely They fitted a thicker front ARB to compensate.

On the GT6 and Vitesse they went the whole hog, and although the upper link was still the transverse spring, they fitted a lower link and provided the drive shafts with Rotoflex joints. This made the suspension essentially a double wishbone assembly and was a much better solution.

On the later GT6 and Spitfires, they returned to the swing spring set up on cost grounds. it actually worked very well.