A few weeks ago when I left my house to go to work I hear a loud cluck from my car. The best way to describe it is that I ran over a pipe and it swung up and hit the underside of the car. Since I washed it the night before I blew it off as rusty rotors. Well, 100 yards down the road I notice my tire pressure light is off. Stop the car and get out to check them out; all good. I start driving again and realize that the ABS light is also on, along with the DSC and brake wear light. I just installed a shift light and thought the computer might have shorted so I nursed it to work (4 miles) and would drop it off at lunch to have it checked out (shop is a mile down the road). The car felt fine, the brake pedal was just a bit heavier and I figure that was becasue all the electronics had shut off.

When I walked out to take the car there later I noticed the rear of the car was really low... almost 2 inches lower. Ok so something is seriously wrong. I limped it to the shop and told them what was up and to let me know. They called me 15 minutes later and said my rear spring had snapped, and when it did it went over the strut, took out the abs sensor and crimped the S/S brake line shut. They told me it was ok to limp it home to do repairs (they know me and know I do all my own work) becuase this was a easy fix. I ordered the lines and sensors and just needed to wait for them to come in. Once I get it off and look at it myself I'll make a call on what to do with the springs (replace with new ones, or upgrade to coils if the struts are damaged)

I've been really busy since and haven't been able to work on it or look at it. I simply put the jack under it to relieve some stress on the struts and abs line. Well I'm free this weekend so lets check it out! (i forgot to take a picture of it on the ground, but the rear tires were almost rubbing the TOP of the wheel well!)



Up on blocks. I've got alot of work I need to do anyway (aero kit) so I thought this would be the best bet



Passenger side. Yeah, that looks normal. I was in the process of removing it which is why the swaybar is disconnected.



Yep, that looks good.



Drivers side; oh that's just not right at all



Yeah something is really wrong here. Note the abs line being tugged to the limit by the spring. The mechanic reckoned that the insides wires had be stretched and broken



Got the strut off and now I'm trying to free the spring from the abs line



Still trying! This was a real pain to get off... I should have just cut it since I ordered a new one anyway.



The spring is free! with no cutting either!



Dear hotchkis, Please sack your quality control department. My dad was with me for a bit while I took this off and he is a mechanical engineer and director at the orthopedic company we work for (pretty much in charge of all manufacturing processes). He says definite fatigue fracture (you can see discoloration in the middle) and it was a defect during the manufacuring process of the metal. He was surprise it took that long to break. I'll be in touch with hotchkis to see what they want to do.

The struts appear to be ok. I'm about to replace the abs line and SS lines. I had the option of just getting new springs, but I really wanted coilovers anyway (i got a great deals on this set up) so I ordered some BCs. They should be here next week. Until then, I've got alot of work to do before the dragon and not very many weekends left

 

Whoa, crazy! Good thing it didn't do any worse damage. Due let us know what ends up happening with Hotchkis.

 

Sure looks like a failure due to poor use of poor materials. I would press for not only money back for the part but for the parts that were damaged also. Sounds reasonable since their defect caused the resulting damage.

 

Now that I have it off I will be telling Hotckis about it and sending them the springs so that they can analyze it. I'm not sure what they will do, though (as far as reimbursment is concerned). These were bought used and are about 2.5-3 years old. Still no excuse for them snapping like that, especially when hundreds of nam members run this setup with no know problems. Fortunatly it looks like only the abs line and ss lines were damaged, which is almost $150 in parts and came out of our funds for the dragon. We'll see. I'll probably wait until after the dragon to deal with that becuase I'm more concered about getting the car ready and safe to drive until then.

At least this happened in my driveway and not ON the dragon when i would have been balling a much higher speeds...

 

Dude, you've got time to fix it. It's better that you didn't get hurt.

 

Yeah, I've got time to do it; it will be a squeaker with everything else going on and other things that need to be done. I'll be focusing on this heavily, though. I just need to pray really hard to the dark lord of car mechanics that nothing else goes wrong and I'm able to do everything.

I got the minor repairs done this afternoon. Replaced the brake lines, brake sensor, and abs sensor. I also went ahead and pulled the bumpers off in prepartion for the aero kit and driving lamps. The garage was a mess of car parts! I was going to go ahead and take the front suspension off in preparation for the BC coilovers, but one of the wheels was jammed and wouldn't come off. I tried everything I know but it still wouldn't budge, and I wasn't comfortable drop kicking it with the car on 4 stands so I was just going to wait to do that corner after I got it back down on wheels. After I cleaned everything up and was on my way inside I gave it one more kick in disgust and it fell off.... Whoo-hoo!

 

Wow! thats scarey, i just put H-Sports on a month ago,all is well so far!Good luck,i hope Hotchkis steps up and backs their product,they've got a good rep in the automotive aftermarket.
Bill

 

Well the brake lines are done, so that's a good thing. The coilovers shouldn't be that bad to install. The aerokit and lights can wait if you don't have enough time right?

Have you contacted Hotchkis yet? Keep us posted.

 

Hotchkis is a respectable company, they'll want the busted spring back for R&D and will probably give you a free set of new ones with zero hassle.

 

I'm a firm believer that H-stuff is trash.
I'll never spend a dollar on them.

 

I've got the bumpers off and will be working on the aero kit a little bit each night. The coilovers will be a simple swap when they get here (with the exception of drilling a hole in the rear for the adjuster) and would be done in a day. Setting the driving lamps up the way I want will be a pain I think and I'm getting a shop to wire them up cause I don't fool with wiring.

I'll be getting in touch with them soon and will be sure to keep everyone posted.

 

My brothers H-Sport springs are pretty stiff, with little drop and come with cheap bump stops that have already been torn up in under a year.

 

I ran H-sport springs for about 3 years and found that ALL the progresive rate was gone (static they had at least 3 coils compressed completely) and the ride was, well... rough. I have TSW springs now and the feel of the car is much improved! I still have the springs just not sure I want to sell them to anyone.