'89 190e 2.6 broken front spring removal
 

Title says it all.
Drivers side spring has broken near the lower end. The PO also installed a hitch mount on the rear to tow a small sailboat, and the rear has been a bit low since I got it. I'm thinking its time for R&R all 4 springs.
I have a lot of respect for springs- so renting a spring compressor is #1.
#2 is removal of broken spring- 'simply' compress the remains?

As to new springs- I'm not looking to lower the car, and want original ride height- 4 in the car make for some cautious approaches to speed bumps.
Suggestions for replacements would be appreciated.

The surest way to restore the original ride height and ride/handling would be to purchase replacement springs from a MB dealer.

Springs on pre bean-counter era cars were very high quality and carefully matched.

You could get a set from a junk yard and have them reset by a spring specialist. The old ones are probably better quality than newer ones.

Use the proper tool, avoid the cheaper Klann clones as this video show

The Dangers of Replacing Coil Springs on Your Vehicle - Full Clip - YouTube

Good used springs are easy to source at recyclers and online forums.

I've only watched part of that video, but why did they remove all the stuff to get the spring out? It didn't even look like they compressed it all that much? I certainly didn't have to remove anything like that on my 126 or 124.
I had the 124 spring compressed quite a bit, very little room between the coils when compressed... The 126 rears had about a finger or so of room between the coils and it made it out OK.

Also around 9:28..why on earth would you do that? Barely compress the spring, gut everything around it, then try to pry the spring out like that?
It seems like had they actually compressed the spring it would have came out without this much effort..maybe I'm wrong or maybe i've been doing it wrong..

that video is incredibly strange.

They are using a compressor that has a cutout on the top plate so it can slide into the tension bolt, this leaves a big room for the tension bolt to pop free - and the guy prying it actually just did that, pried the spring sideways - it tilted the tension bolt out of the top plate and away the spring goes.

btw - I also could not understand why take off all sundry parts to replace springs on a W210?

I've had no problem with my Klann clone spring compressor. It seems to be of high quality. It was only $200 on eBay. I've done four springs with it so far. Two 126 rear and two 124 fronts. I've got two more 126 fronts to do and maybe a whole 126 also.

Here's its box and the smaller 201/124 plates:

http://i.imgur.com/oIu8R6pl.jpg

Thanks for the info. With 300k miles on it, good used springs would fit the bill.
I've seen the video- I like the 'never read the instructions' bit