Fiesta Coil Spring

[webinteractions]

Hi,

I have a fiesta 05, 1.2 engine, manual, petrol and I am in need of some advice, on xmas eve i went to reverse the car out of the drive when i heard a grinding noise from the wheel arch. I stopped and looked behind the wheel and notice the coil has snapped. In desperation (Mrs is ready to go into labour at anytime!) i took it to th eonly garage that was open on Saturday - Kwikfit, they quoted £120 to replace it, little more expensive than i hoped but in the circumstances i agreed.

When the car was delivered to Kwikfit that morning they rang back and said they couldn't get the part till tomorrow and after having a look, it is worse than expected. He mentioned about erroded bolts and threads have gone and will need more new parts. Having looked at the diagram of the suspension i believe he is referring to the bearing plate above the strut? The new quote is a little over £320.

Has anyone heard of this happening before? Is it common, i am in two minds of getting it towed to a 'proper' local garage, I have been quoted £30 for towing it. Any ideas, advice will be much appreciated.

thanks,

[stef123]

£320 seems very excessive!

Are we talking about a front coil spring here?

[webinteractions]

Hi, thanks for replying. Yes front coil. Well, the original cost was for just the coil but the new quotes include other parts due to bolts eroding and damaged threads which are preventing them from just fitting the front coil.

[stef123]

A coil spring, shock absorber, top mount/bearing and anti roll bar drop link should come to around £100 - £120 in parts as an estimate.

Any seized bolts could be cut away if all the parts are being replaced anyway. The only 'difficult' if damaged thread would be the pinch bolt which holds the shock into the steering knuckle bit it could be sorted out.

Is the quote of £320 for one side only? If your not familiar with all the above parts, to change a spring means removing all of thse parts anyway so they can't charge you any extra labour for having to remove the shock absorber or top mount for example.

So at a guess I would reckon £150-170 would cover it at any reasonable garage if only for one side

[stef123]

If your curious as to parts cost, go onto eurocarparts, put in your reg and have a look. Looking on there they have Sachs and boge springs (good brands) from £20! Which is half of the price I used as a guess.

[webinteractions]

Really appreciate your response, that helps me out a lot. I didn't realise they needed to remove all the parts to replace the spring anyway. Yes this is just for one side.

After reading your post i think i will have it towed to a different garage, i may get lucky and save myself £100 even paying for the towing costs.

[Gary.J]

Plus replacing one spring only is a bad idea. Depending on the age of the car, distance driven and how it has been loaded, springs do weaken over time. A heavily worn spring, and also strut has different handling characteristics to a new one, so just changing one will affect how the car drives, hence a bad idea, especially with winter conditions, to just do one. Plus a 10 year old car car may well have the other spring near to failing also. With wife late in pregnancy do you really want to chance it?

I replaced both springs and dampers on my daughters car early this year, The price for springs was £30 and the dampers £50 for the pair. Ordered off eBay, and they were decent quality parts, Sachs for each. The top mounts were ok, but again, on eBay for a top mount and bearing kit for both sides, is less than £50, plus drop links also from memory about £15. A couple of hours on the drive on axle stands saw each side done. So, that gives you an indication of Quik Fits pricing policy. I paid £95 but could have paid £145, plus an afternoons work against them doing one side only for £320 and most likely in half the time it took me because they have more tools.

[webinteractions]

Hi all, I thought I would update you on the situation as you took the time out to help me.

I contacted Kwik to break down the quote they gave me:

Spring £76 (they say that includes fitting)

Shock £112 (not sure if that's fitting inc)

Top mount £35 (not sure if that inc fitting)

Alignment £45 (not sure if that inc fitting)

That doesn't even come to the £315 they quoted and by this point I was angry and told them I am organising a pickup for the car and I will not be using their services. The tow cost me £30 and the garage managed to fit it for £80 inc parts.

All in all I have saved £205 thanks to stef123 especially. I am still very angry at kwikfit and I am considering what action to take against kwikfit, if any.

Thanks again

[Gary.J]

Glad you managed to get it sorted, and thanks for the update. Forget taking any sort of legal action against kwikfit, they can quote whatever they like, it's up to the customer to accept or refuse the quote.

What will hurt them is the fact you've posted in a car forum, and shown people that Kwikfit aren't the best option when work needs doing. that hits them in the pocket.

As for the breakdown of the job, add VAT and the price is what they quoted you. But, they shouldn't quote you plus VAT as a customer, the law states that all prices to none business users should always include VAT. Not a lot of people know that.

[stef123]

Well thank you for the update. Glad to hear we have helped save you some dosh and the embarrassment of using kwik-fit. £80 repair + £30 towing cost seems more than reasonable.

[fusion66]

I have posted a new thread on Fiesta/Fusion front springs which may be relevant to your problem.

It's a common problem, more to do with design than anything else, as you will appreciate from the frequency which failures happen.

It must be safety issue but it appears there has never been a recall and little information on any modifications which aleviate failure frequency.

The problem KwikFit may be talking about is the arrangement of bolting all the top end of the spring and suspension strut together. A M12 nut holds it all together but the end of the shock absorber terminates with a 6mm Allen head so its a real pain to free - and they do rust! It needs a special tool - sort of socket with a hole down the middle for the Allen key to go which will reach down into the top well.

The M12 nut is not the usual 1.75 pitch but as yet I have not established which pitch it is (there are 4 for M12s)

More info is needed as there must be a solution.

Here's hoping FOC members can come in on the subject.

K3