[mr_saab]

Hit a nice pothole last week, and jacked up the car and found this :x

Priced a new OEM set of springs, but are the OEM ones of good quality or is there a better aftermarket coil?. I was also thinking of replacing the bearing and maybe the top plates? Am I missing anything else? Does the rubber sleeve that sits on the spring at the bottom come with the new one?

Thanks

 

[AVguy]

Another failed coil spring. They were covered under a special program in the US but I believe that with it being a 2004 it would no longer be covered.

Stock springs are fine if you are not looking to lower car. The rubber sleeve has been superseded by a thin zinc metal spacer ring. Check the sticky on spring replacement. Replace as many parts as you can related to the strut. It's a pain to have to go back and redo anything.

 

[dviper500]

They extended the warranty on these because so many were breaking. Mine broke a couple years back, and it was replaced for free. There was a stipulation that the car had to be under 120k miles, and I think the car would have to be less than 10yrs old but maybe look into it anyway?

 

[mr_saab]

Yeah someone mentioned 120k or 10yrs on a fb group. Either way my car is way over and most likely since Saab was divorced from GM it doesn't count anymore

 

[mr_saab]

Another failed coil spring. They were covered under a special program in the US but I believe that with it being a 2004 it would no longer be covered.

Stock springs are fine if you are not looking to lower car. The rubber sleeve has been superseded by a thin zinc metal spacer ring. Check the sticky on spring replacement. Replace as many parts as you can related to the strut. It's a pain to have to go back and redo anything.

Bearing, top plate, zinc spacer, maybe the strut bump.

Has anyone tried the Sachs or uroparts bearings and top plates...are they OEM quality or is one of them the sabbparts supplier since those are the only two aftermarket brands I found that make individual suspension parts for this car?

 

[falcon21]

Yeah someone mentioned 120k or 10yrs on a fb group. Either way my car is way over and most likely since Saab was divorced from GM it doesn't count anymore

GM is still on the hook. They may not cover this due to the age of the car but they are still doing seat belt recalls and now soon they will be doing airbag recalls.

 

[swedespeed7]

Stock springs are fine if you are not looking to lower car. The rubber sleeve has been superseded by a thin zinc metal spacer ring.

I believe it was actually the other way around, the zinc ring was superseded by the rubber sleeve, unfortunately. The zinc ring is still available, though, and is obviously preferred over the rubber by enthusiasts like us who know which part to buy when attacking this issue.

Another thing: I've never heard of aftermarket springs cracking, even when installed using the rubber sleeve. OP, this may be an opportunity for you to replace your springs with an Eibach set, which will lightly lower the car and have a high quality coating.

That being said, it would be difficult to determine the root cause of this issue since most people who encounter it replace with OEM springs. We'll probably never know if the issue was caused by low-quality OEM spring coatings or whether it was simply caused by the rubber hose trapping moisture in the bottom of the spring. A good quality spring should be able to withstand exposure to moisture.

 

[dviper500]

Mine was after Saab went under, GM still took care of it. Both sides on my car have the zinc rings, so I don't think it's caused by the rubber sleeve.

Funny coincidence, but I just did my strut bearings last weekend. I don't know anything about Sachs or Uroparts parts, but I got AC Delco bearings from Amazon for ~$10 each. Part number is 13270705. Claims to be GM OEM, but not sure about Saab specifically - markings on the back were slightly different from the ones I removed, but the fit was fine and the steering feels much better now.