Spring explosion

[gigdy]

My parents just sold there 2000 mercury sable to my uncle. He was having a barbeque last week and heard a loup pop. they went to the front of their house to see what happened and notice their front tire was flat. The spring had exploded and shot into the tire. it also broke some other things (not sure what) . So this is a warning to anyone else with a 2000 sable/taurus. There are atleast 25 other known cases of this and ford is not recalling them since it has not happened enough and would be to expensive to recall.

[nthfinity]

well, there is always a cost/benefit formula to cause, or notbring recals. there are many problems with the same year gm grand am/ grand prix, yet i havent seen a recal for that either... also, look at how many tire tread problems the explorer had before the 13 billion $ recal happend?

that beings said, im glad that nobody was hurt.... if it happend at highway speeds, that could have been serious. (just check out the new 5th gear ep)

i could ask my dad today if he knows anything about that problem in particular, as he is a reliability guy as of summer 2001 @ ford... but he is only involved with new car production, so i dont know if he'll know anything. without a doubt, he does have the info available to him.

which 'spring' exploded, was it related to the shocks, or the springs? describe for me as much as you can, and ill see if i can fetch any info w/out disclosing too much :- |

[gigdy]

Yeah i know some about the whole recall thing. (some learned from fight club) any way it was the front left spring. It was the springs fault (possably overhardening; not sure if that is hear-say) my uncle is talking to ford about it because they only want to replace the one spring and nothing else. They said if it had happened while driving the fact that the spring broke would have been a result of the crash not the cause.

[nthfinity]

They said if it had happened while driving the fact that the spring broke would have been a result of the crash not the cause.


it would depend on the crash senario... if the rear end ended up smashed due to the loss of control, and the fron was undamaged, except the spring, and tire... then it would be quite obvious what was the cause of that sudden loss of control.

i understand the mechanic only wishing to replace the one spring... tis cheaper to do only one, and, if it aint broke, dont fix it seems to come into view. is the spring on the opposite side the same model number? if so, most definately get that one changed out as well. if not, then i would worry much less