Hi. Ive been quoted 220 (!) quid to replace the front coil springs after an MOT failure. Seems a bit steep to me, the springs are about 40 quid each I believe. I'd appreciate your thoughts. Cheers
Replace front springs 2005 160SR.
- Thread starter Locopoloco
- Start date
That is a little bit steep I suppose ..... one would have to unbolt the suspension strut from the back of the wheel hub, remove the brake line clips and disconnect the drop link arm and then unbolt the strut from the strut tower before pulling the whole thing out. Then just take a spring compressor, compress the old spring on the strut and then remove the strut top, then put the new spring over the strut, compress it and then put the strut top back on before doing the whole process in reverse. Then just multiply that by two 
if you were to do it yourself it would probably take you the better part of an hour and a half, but for a trained mechanic it should take roughly an hour. But honestly I think almost every mechanic overcharges for the work they do ... 60 quid for a wheel balance and brake rotor run out test??? Yeah right .... I could do that myself if I just had the machines and you can bet that it is not 60 quid worth of work, more like 20.
if you were to do it yourself it would probably take you the better part of an hour and a half, but for a trained mechanic it should take roughly an hour. But honestly I think almost every mechanic overcharges for the work they do ... 60 quid for a wheel balance and brake rotor run out test??? Yeah right .... I could do that myself if I just had the machines and you can bet that it is not 60 quid worth of work, more like 20.
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Yeah not a difficult job, so 140 quid for labour seems excessive even accounting for vat. The MOT was done at halfords, they quoted 252 quid. The guy i usually go to works with his son out of a small unit, word of mouth business been there for years, so thought he would be cheaper. Think I'll have a word get him down a bit. Thanks for the input...
No problem, good luck! and just how did it fail MOT?
and just how did it fail MOT?
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It failed on broken springs. Im suspicious, drove 750 miles in it last week, no clunks or dodgy handling or dropped suspension. I know the plastic discs on the bottom end of the springs are broken but the springs look okay to me. When I queried the fail, the halfords bloke said they might just be cracked. Not very convincing tbh.
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Sorry plastic bits are at top of springs not bottm...
You mean like the rubber cover or the strut tops? Broken strut tops would be a problem ... but yeah, my Mum had a Ford minivan go in for an MOT and it failed because of some small bushings that were missing on the steering rack?? They didn't know what they were called or what they did, so Mum rang the garage and they had absolutely no idea what the testers were on about. So a couple hundred quid later the mechanic thinks he's put done extra bushings on the steering rack and then the van passes. They can be so picky about things and also completely clueless ...
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Plastic rings that cover the top of each spring are broken. Anyhow, I took the car back to the local garage to double check the springs which are indeed broken :/. The 220 quid he quoted originally included springs at 60 quid each. I asked him to quote for pattern parts, said it should be 40 quid cheaper... Every little helps. Cheers
YouTube it. The procedure for every hatchback is pretty much the same
