Breaking Coil springs

Having had my Ford Mondeo now for some time there is something i would like to share with those out there who may encounter this problem of coil spring breakages and why it happens? It seems to be that from the expensive to the cheap there does not seem to be a reliable coil spring which will last a good few years. I would also like to tell anyone of just replacing the whole unit with one from a scrap yard rather then getting the spring replaced to avoid this. I have done it when i just could not be bothered to replace the coil spring. The problem with buying second hand struts is that you don't really know what sort of mileage the car has done that the strut came from. In short really unless you are lucky enough to get a strut with a brand new spring it is false economy to go down that route. Ok if you have a leaky strut or one with no damping effect then maybe ok, but still replace the spring before fitting. So just go out and buy a brand new spring.

Obviously roads that have these sleeping Policeman fitted do not help any suspension especially if you are the sort who drives over these ramps to the point of take off rather than taking them gently. But these alone will not break any coil spring unless the coil spring has been severly weakened during manufacture.
Normally what happens is the paint these springs are thinly coated with breaks open allowing water to collect around that area of the spring causing the metal to oxidise thus then eats away at the metal of the spring and causing it to have a severe weak point. Now if you have a spring which is rotten in a certain part of it that is where it is going to finally break! Now i have gone from most expensive to the cheap on Ebay and it does not really matter what price you pay for the spring as they all break and really just because its the most expensive does not mean to say its going to last longer than a cheapy coil spring. But when i say cheapy i know there are some dire makes out there, but there are coil springs which come out around say £26 including postage and delivery that are just as good as the most expensive. The only difference you may have is that the warranty on an expensive spring maybe longer, but it does not mean to say its been made any better.

It will always be mostly the fronts will break more than the rears but that is not to say they never break on the back because they do!
Also if you are fitting a coil spring for the first time make sure that you take a good look how the spring is located in the strut and at the top. Because if the new spring does not go into the stop point mostly on the top plate the car is an MOT failure if the MOT inspector sees it which likely he will. Usually termed as Coil spring not correctly located. I will include some pictures.