How many of you have broken front coils on your W124?????

[350SL4spd]

Hello all.
The left front coil on our '91 300TE has been broken for a months or so, but the car was still drive-able. Last night the right one went while driving (you wanna talk about a wake up call! BANG ). Now, this car has been fairly well babied all its life. In the family since '97/40k mi, now less than 102k mi, driven most by mom back and forth to work 5mi a day and the occasional highway trip 2hrs to Rochester and back. This, in itself, is acceptable. What is not acceptable is that we already had to replace both bloody front coils on the car!! Somewhere around '00, I think...With dealer supplied parts, no less!

What I want to know is: Is this common? How many other W124 owners/POs have had to do there front coils/how many times?

Talking to my parts guy at the dealer, he says the only option for front springs from the factory was whether or not you got the sunroof (different springs w/ sunroof ). Apparently you get beefier springs w/ a sunroof....

-Matt-

I mean... of all the damn things to break twice..... it's gotta be the biggest PITA to change....

[yal]

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=113284&highlight=broken+springs

See link above. Seems to be a problem area. We have had a lot of snow and salt here in NY, I think I will wash out my lower control arm spring perch this weekend. I never really thought of this happening.

Your springs could also be defective. Did you get them from the dealer? They really shouldnt rust like that. I have Eibachs on my car and not a spot of rust on them.
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=64549&highlight=broken+spring

[Pete Geither]

Replaced a front spring on our 90 300E when we owned it.