[T3] Old Parts vs. New

[Jim Adney]

Our 2011 Jetta wagon developed a thump when going over bumps, 
somewhere in the rear end, a month or so ago. Getting the car up on a 
friend's lift I finally spotted a broken RR rear coil spring. Seemed odd, that in 
a car this new, a spring would break, especially one that had all its heavy 
plastic coating intact, no sign of rust on it anywhere. The break was a very 
typical helical torsion fracture, which leads me to belive that VW engineered 
this spring a bit too close to the fatigue failure point. 

I checked around and found that this was a OE VW part only. I could find 
prices on the web ranging from $77 to $140 each, but our dealer had a pair 
and admitted that they would not stock it unless they sold them regularly. 
The surprising thing is that this spring is the same spring used on Golfs, 
Jetta sedans, and Jetta wagons over quite a few years. Seems like the 
wagons should have gotten a heavier spring.

We needed the car for a trip in just a few days, so I bought one from the 
dealer. They also recommended that we replace the $7 lower shock bolt, 
which would have to be taken out to make room for the spring.

My friend with the lift, Chris, and I worked for 2 hours to get the old spring 
out and the new one installed. Getting the old one out was actually harder, 
because that was when we had to figure out the best way to get a spring 
compresser in there, which we even needed fo remove the old one. (It was 
broken near the upper end.) In the end, I returned the special $7 bolt, 
because we managed to get the old one out in very good condition, so it 
went right back in.

Well, the point of this is how lucky I feel that I've driven Type 3s for nearly 50 
years and only broken one torsion spring, and that one only broke after 
water got in the front axle beam and rusted the bar badly. While I often wish 
our cars didn't tend to rust so badly in certain places, I suspect our Jetta has 
no chance of lasting as long as any of my Type 3s has.


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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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