Technical are any of these parts good for another few years?

Currently reading:
Technical are any of these parts good for another few years?

Joined
Mar 5, 2013
Messages
404
Points
114
Location
France, Autun
A little back story which can be ignored if needs be.
Recently i bought a tonne of wood pellets for my granule stove, i have two cars, a xsara picaaso and my Marea weekend, both cars have a maximum load weight of just under 600Kg, plenty to split the load 500/500 each. The problem i soon noticed is that while the Xsara was visibly well laden, the Weekend, was mere centimetres from losing it's fuel tank to the first little bump in the road, i had to do some very careful driving with the Mrs guiding me to get into the garden past the gate stops.
This lead to some closer investigation of the state of the springs, and they are very rusty, the protection has peeled of most of the bottom, im guessing they are the original springs, so i went and removed the springs from my old dead Weekend which i have on blocks for spares, gave them a quick wash, and to me, they don't look as bad, but it's hard to tell, where there was a rubber sleeve around the top of the spring where they are badly rusted, but after a scrape to the bare metal, i measure only a 0.5mm reduction in circumference compared to the protected and painted parts.

So i put it to you, should i risk it being worse, and swap the springs from my old car (the ones on the grass) and possibly gain nothing other than the bump stops being attached instead of floating around, or should i put some pennies away to get some new springs, should i just get some towing spacers to put inbetween the coils, or should i just ignore it and never load the car so heavy again?
if it matters, the top of the wheel arch is 65.0cm from the ground with 195/55 R15 tyres, half a tank of fuel and very little clutter in the boot..
all opinions valued.
ta muchly
 

Attachments

  • DSC_3004.jpg
    DSC_3004.jpg
    1 MB · Views: 19
  • DSC_3001.jpg
    DSC_3001.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 19
  • DSC_2997.jpg
    DSC_2997.jpg
    1.6 MB · Views: 21
Leave the existing springs, ( I've seen worse..!!) but give them a good coat of rustconverter, and than soak them with ML, and last, spray underbody coating on them.
They will at least last for some more years.

And those bumpstops ( expensive though) can be replaced while the springs are on the car.
Raise the back of the car, so the springs stretch out, put teflon spray on the new bumpstops, and put them in place, done.
 
Last edited:
on further reflection I suppose the excessively low profile when fully loaded was possibly due to faulty bump stops?
i have the bump stops removed from my old car already, and they seem in very good condition (photo on the grass), i think they'll be the same age as the fairly new looking shock absorbers, good news if i can change them without taking the springs off first, although it's only a 10 minute job to have the springs off to be fair.
 
Could get some multipla rear springs as they are far stiffer and would cope with the loads a lot better

hmm, could be a good solution, max charge on the multipla is indeed much more than the weekend, a quick calculation and i reckon using mutipla springs would increase the max charge of the weekend by 235Kg.

being inexperienced about real world performance modifications however, i'm curious, at what point would using stiffer springs adversely affect the ride when unloaded? would a back end being too stiff cause it to bounce around a bit? could this lead to excessive over-steer?

it's a very interesting idea, but is it a good one?
 
Back
Top