Well, discovered one of my rear coil springs corroded and snapped off 1/2 of the bottom coil on the passenger side. I heard some 'pinging' sound from the rear suspension a couple of weeks ago and got under there to see what was making the noise. It wasn't consistent, so I was expecting to find a broken sway bar link or possibly a damaged bushing...nope, it was the rear coil spring (see below). Somehow that broken section was still sitting on the control arm. From the look of the corrosion on the surface of the break, it had broken some time ago, but decided to stay quiet till just recently. I set out to find a set of OEM springs to replace, since I don't want to go to an aftermarket setup.

Ugghh, the rear coils listed for my car are obsolete!?! I did find a replacement Mini spring, but more than I wanted to spend for a stock item. I turned to the salvage market and found a same/same 2017 model with only 37K on the clock, confirmed with a VIN lookup, and ordered them up...easy-peasy, right? Received them last night and pulled them out and noticed they had a thin rubber sleeve that covered ~2 coils in the center of the spring, which isn't like my stock units. I also noticed they didn't have a Mini/BMW tag wrapped on the coil anywhere...hmmm. I compared my broken tail piece to the salvage units and they didn't match up. The 'small' tail on the salvage units are a larger bend diameter and the wire diameter didn't look the same. My stock spring wire measures 13.3mm, the salvage spring wire measures 15.0mm?!? That is a HUGE difference in wire diameter and now has me guessing if the springs in that salvage F54 were aftermarket and not OEM or the salvage yard sent me the wrong springs. I almost feel that these are aftermarket springs, since the salvage yard did confirm that the F54 that was pictured on their site did not have electronic dampers for me before I ordered them.

My plan is to pull one of my stock springs out and compare them side by side with these salvage springs. I am thinking I may be returning them, if they are that different. I will look at them a bit closer tonight to see if I can find any markings on them to determine if they are aftermarket, but anyone know if any aftermarket springs are black with a 15.0mm diameter wire??


Bottom tail, broken edge on the left and the end of the tail is even split on the right.

Here is how the broken spring is sitting on the control arm, luckily still contained by the extruded flange.

 

Wow thats like the older R60 Countryman Springs in the rear that do that.

Whats your vin, you can PM me and i can check if its really nla. They are VIN specific and buried in the catalogs.

 

My wife's old Mazda5 did that, too. I would take this as an opportunity to upgrade...

 

PM sent! I included the VIN of the salvage vehicle that the springs were supposed to be off of. I don't even think they are front springs for an F54, so not sure just what happened, but they will be going back. I pulled the 'good' rear spring off to get a side-by-side comparison and you can see that the salvage spring is likely from some other vehicle...uugghh!

 

Hello,

Just messaged you back with what i found.

Thanks
MIke

 

Just shot you back on your PM, thanx.

B-Part has sent me a notice for a return, just waiting on the details so I can send these back to whomever the salvage yard was in Idaho. On to find a proper pair of replacement springs.

 

Well, per some support from ECS, it looks like we cannot just assume because there is a model match from a salvage vehicle that the springs will be the same...go figure! Rather than play 'games' with salvage sources, I am just going to open up the wallet and get a VIN specific OEM springs.