...What spring problem?...
The problem is springs can break without warning in what could properly be described as normal use.
In Massa's case, the bit seems to have flown off the other car as it was going down a straight.
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.. or thrown up by those wide wheels?
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What I am asking, though, IIH, is is it a problem with the springs or the road or peoples' driving...
Can't say I've heard of an ongoing problem with springs on race cars, considering the punishment they get I'm surprised they (and other components) don't break more often... as for road cars, I think its a mixture of design (building them down to a price) and misuse by the car owner (driving too fast over bumps, lack of attention to the road ahead).
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....is is it a problem with the springs or the road or peoples' driving...
Failure at an unexpected time.
Springs can go pop when the car is standing still, which is not dangerous, but does illustrate the problem.
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I had both springs fail spontaneously over night in my previous car (Citroen Xsara Estate).
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Is there an ongoing problem like the OP indicates there is, though?
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Is there an ongoing problem like the OP indicates there is though?
YES....
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YES....
Where? It now seems that the spring in the F1 incident was not actually broken....
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Where?
Have you been asleep?
springs are breaking everywhere!
we sell loads! I would say, on an average day we sell 6 pairs a day!
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Failure at an unexpected time.
I'd have thought that almost every part on a F1 car would be brand-new, so spring failure should be most unlikely. The spring failures discussed on here are usually after several years? (Maybe it wasn't fitted properly?)
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Can we nail once and for all this idea that springs break because people drive too fast over speed bumps? It's cobblers.
Car road springs are supposed to be able to cope with the bumps cars will encounter, and generally speaking they are.
There seems to have been a deterioration in the quality of springs in some makes of car, judging by many posts here. They break because they aren't good enough for the job.
If people feel they have to mimse because their springs might break, they damn well ought to get another sort of car instead of holding everyone up and getting in an anxiety state.
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Springs hardly ever broke years ago, and I've had many old cars whose springs have outlived the rest of the car. All that has happened is that designers have sacrificed traditional robustness in the interests of the fashion for absurd low-profile tyres, and cheapest possible costs. The public has been been a willing victim of this confidence trick, and has come to believe that fragile springs are inevitable.
Perhaps cars should carry spare springs slung on the sides, like LandRovers going on safaris across boulder-strewn mountain tracks.
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I will hold people up thank you. I am not risking my driving licence because somebody wants to the pub and is in a rush.
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Tsk! The young people of today, Me Me Me!
I ask you, what is a whippersnapper's driving licence measured against the raging thirst of a senior citizen? Really I despair of British society.
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I didn't see much of the GP this weekend, but I thought the spring came off because of a bolt failure?
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RR, I too thought I'd heard the spring and other suspension bits came free due to a bolt failing.
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The "springs" fitted to an F1 car are actually torsion bars.
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The "springs" fitted to an F1 car are actually torsion bars.
Goes without saying, innit.
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This was a centrally, transversely mounted coil spring.
Though if you were being pedantic, you could call that a coiled torsion bar.
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The example Eddie Jordan was waving around on the telly looked like a spring to me.
Boing! said Zebedee. :)
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Found a picture of a "heave spring" - labelled 1 -
i44.tinypic.com/256vdhy.jpg
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Bring back leaf springs all round. Lagged and soaked in oil. They'll last forever :-)
Edited by captain chaos on 26/07/2009 at 23:54
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Bring back leaf springs all round. Lagged and soaked in oil. They'll last forever :-)
Strangely enough, my twenty year-old Citroën CX has never suffered from spring breakage :-)
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Bring back leaf springs all round. Lagged and soaked in oil. They'll last forever :-)
They tended to droop a bit though. I had my Consul 375 back springs reset by a blacksmith. Lifted it up again.
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Quote:....""Bring back leaf springs all round. Lagged and soaked in oil. They'll last forever :-)""
Until the main leaf snaps near the mounting and then you're in real trouble!
Edited by Sofa Spud on 27/07/2009 at 14:01
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Having worked on AECs and Leyland trucks, many years ago now!, I can say without any hesitation that those leaf springs certainly did not last forever!
In fact failure was so routine, we began to stock individual leaves to enable us to rebuild springs on the spot to keep trucks going!
Lack of leaf spring failure was just another reason why the reliability of Mercedes trucks in the 1970s was such a revelation to us.
In fairness, Leyland did begin to get it right when they launched the T45 cabbed Scammell Constructor. It was years later when I found that the eminent engineer who had been lecturing to our year group at university about the basics of vehicle design was responsible for this much improved suspension.
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In fairness Leyland did begin to get it right when they launched the T45 cabbed Scammell Constructor.
The springs were strong and did last well, unfortunately the damping was abysmal and the driver (been there meself) spent much of the time airborne, hanging onto the steering wheel to stop being thrown out...i joke not.
Our Constructors (the Roadtrain tractor unit were just as bad) all had dents along the steel moulding above the drivers head, caused by the driver's head.
Present day Scania's ( the 111 of late 70's was the only one not too bad) are still plagued with this problem, it's exhausting over the course of a week.
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>>caused by the driver's head.
Our Constructor eight wheelers had a good quality Isringhausen suspension seat that, once set up properly, dealt with the worst. The six wheeler we had, with the smaller cab, was much more bouncy - just like Bisons were when compared to Octopi.
We didn't have any Roadtrains (luckily!), by this time, the Marathons, Mandators, and the Crusader had all been replaced by various Mercedes tractor units with slightly different versions of the 14.6 litre V8.
The Buffalo with the L12 engine and 6 speed gearbox did last well into the mid 1980's, as did a Bison and a couple of Octopi - that engine and driveline was really strong - it was effectively an AEC engine, but, with the nasty, unreliable DPA pump replaced with a much stronger Bosch unit.
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Somebody has to ask - what's the difference between a Buffalo and a Bison?
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and this tractor unit
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1977_Leyland_Buffa...g
is a Bufalo.
These trucks were made with a really horrid fixed head engne - the head and block were integral, with no head gasket, and an overhead cam. They were short lived power units.
The range was updated with better engines, the L12 which I mentioned, and you could also buy them with a TL11 engine and a Fuller gearbox - a combination which gave them a bit more go when compared with the L12 and six speed gearbox.
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Somebody has to ask - what's the difference between a Buffalo and a Bison?
Someone has to answer - you can't wash your hands in a Buffalo!
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>>Someone has to answer - you can't wash your hands in a Buffalo!
Boom Boom!
Sorry NC. I'm sure you've heard that one many times and decided to rise above it.
The joke's on me really. Despite annoying my wife and children forever with this gag, with which I was teased by my uncle Sidney about 40 years ago, I didn't know about the headless wonder - sounds like one of those things that work very well in theory!
Edited by Manatee on 28/07/2009 at 07:59
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Years ago, 1970s, the Peugeot 404 estate was the car most used a taxi in Zambia. They had a modified rear springing setup, half elliptical leaf spring to cope with the duty, whereas the standard car in Europe had compression spings. The taxi drivers would not start a journey unless the car was FULL, and then travelled with gas pedal on the floor. When I say FULL I mean not less than ten passengers. I don't remember hearing of any spring problem. But then again, I was not suicidal enough to ride in a taxi.
I had a Ford Prefect as second car, the sit up and beg type with a side valve engine and crank handle. I could put it into top gear within 50 yards and run it about town, slipping the clutch a little on corners. I was a gem of a car, except for the front transverse leaf spring. That snapped on average every three months. I used to get it welded and every time it was a little shorter and harder to get back in.
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Transverse spring........just like a Brawn!
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This was a centrally transversely mounted coil spring. Though if you were being pedantic you could call that a coiled torsion bar.
I stand corrected. I hadn't seen today's reports and was going on what was mentioned at the time yesterday. Having seen the footage from today, you can see that it was a coil spring that was heading towards Massa's crash helmet.
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I have a Mercedes C class estate and have had 3 broken springs since Dec 2008. I live in East Anglia and complained to the MB dealer. They have brought this to the attention of MB UK and apparently they supply twice as many replacement springs in South Lincs, Cambs and Norfolk as to dealers in the rest of the country.
They blame the county councils for not maintaining the roads and admittedly some of the roads in East Anglia are appalling but then I had a Citroen ZX for 12 years and its springs never broke on these roads. Could it be something to do with heavy cars suffering more? But surely this sort of thing is tested severely at the pre-production stage? Or do they think computer simulation is good enough for that too?
Edited by anthonyf on 01/08/2009 at 22:28
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I'll bet when MB export cars to places like Kazakhstan and Chechyna they will have uprated suspensions to cope with the known road conditions there. It can surely only be a matter of time before manufacturers realise that roads here are on a par and start supplying vehicles with appropriate specification.
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