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What is causing the increase in suspension spring failures?

I consider myself extremely lucky that when the spring broke on the front offside suspension on my Mondeo I was just backing out from my drive. No doubt potholes and speed bumps had finally taken their toll. I could have been doing 70mph on a motorway and ended up as another unexplained accident. I am sure hundreds of cars are getting damaged every day due to the state of our roads and the aggressive speed bumps that have been installed by local councils without any thought to the safety of all road users.

What really grieves me is that people like ROSPA are still sitting on the fence and not decrying the damage caused to vehicles by the state of roads and speed bumps. Also where is the Health and Safety Executive in theses discussions? Again, nothing is heard from them. It is about time this Government was less free and easy with our money given in overseas aid and to the EU, and looked after its own citizens first. To my way of thinking charity begins at home.

Asked on 16 February 2013 by ET, via email

Answered by Honest John
I've answered 800,000 letters and emails over the past 17 years, and can tell you that spring failure is increasingly common. The blame can probably be laid on the proliferation of speed humps and, of course, on potholes. In fact, by damaging the road structure through constant pounding, speed humps actually cause potholes (I have the photographic evidence).

However, it's also a fact that most spring failures are on European branded cars. They are very rare on Far Eastern branded cars, even those actually assembled in Europe. And thankfully most failures occur in the morning just after starting when the metal of the spring is at its coldest and therefore its most brittle. It's very rare to experience a spring failure at speed.
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