Tsport Mot Broken spring.

[Rhymes with Paris]

Well, went for the early MOT today,in order to give me a breathing space before it runs out on the 23rd June, it's 20th birthday 🎂.

In case of an expensive fail that would mean replacing the car if repair would exceed value.

I was thinking I might have to join the dark side, and look at a Honda jazz, and start wearing crimplene trousers and a gilet.

TBH the thought of talking to dealer salesmen horrified me a lot more than a fashion faux pa.

But lo and behold it only failed on a broken rear offside road spring.

What I was really worried about were the previous advisories of surface rust underneath the car turning structural, but no,it looks fine under, apart from the spring.

I have had a brief look around on Google, and found what looks like OEM springs around £200 apiece, and various estimates of garage time between 1-3 hours fitting time per side.

So a rough cast up gives £600-700 for buying and fitting the rear pair.

Anyone had this done recently? and could tell me what it cost?

It looks like it is important to get the correct springs for the Japanese made Tsport as if the wrong ones ie standard french model will jack up the rear end, look wrong, and destroy the handling, as well as failing future Mots on that alone, I can't help but think a lot of garages would do this without thinking.

The car is in such good condition and still low mileage 54000 odd , that I reckon it could see me out,if the other parts last, the engine feels like it could last forever with oil changes and proper maintenance.

Any advice welcome on whether to keep this great little car going at 20 years old, reliability is the prime consideration now.

[Cyker]

£200 seems a bit steep, even for T-Sport springs - That sounds like the cost for a full set!

Some options, maybe see if PartsKing or DevonAygo can get you some at a discount?

You can probably get non-OEM ones for less too as there are (Or at least were, not checked in a while) lots of aftermarket ones available from your preferred ricer retail shoppe (e.g. demon tweaks or fensport) that were cheaper than OEM but maintained the same height.

[Rhymes with Paris]

Aye, thanks Cyker.

Interestingly the tester said that they had 5 or 6 failures that day on broken road springs alone.

One while I was there on a Hyundai Santa Fe,a big heavy thing that looked like it had just done the Paris Dakar rally.

Which I suppose is similar to to a trip to the shops now.

 

[tfc]

It might be worth to give these guys a bell and see if they can help you, they have made bespoke springs for some of the guys for the mgb's

springcoil.co.uk

[Bper]

Hi Paul,

I would keep the car if it has been this reliable over the 20 years. Have a shop round to see if you can get any better prices on the springs. 👍

[Rhymes with Paris]

Aye Bob,it has never missed a beat since it was new, apart from when the Battery died while I was in hospital.

I only know this as I have known the car from new.

I bought it in September 2019 from the second keeper who is the lady friend of the original owner over the road.

 

 

[bathtub tom]

Why change both springs? The car's usually unbalanced most of the time, with the engine over one side and the driver the same side.

[Cyker]

Why not? If one's gone, likely the other isn't far behind, and this way you'll save on labour costs. It's not too difficult a job on a Mk1 if you have a spring compressor as there is plenty of space to work around the back (Much easier than the front!!)

[bathtub tom]

My previous car (Nissan) failed an MOT with a broken spring. About 2cm had broken off one end. I replaced that one and nothing else happened in my nine years of ownership.

I had an early FIAT Panda. They had a spacer fitted to the RH front springs of RHD cars, because the engine was that side and most cars are driven one up. The thing was was designed for LHD.

[Rhymes with Paris]

10 minutes ago, bathtub tom said:

Why change both springs? The car's usually unbalanced most of the time, with the engine over one side and the driver the same side.

The other spring is corroded and 20 years old Tom , so heading off trouble at the pass hopefully.

[corradovr6]

The way you've looked after your car Paul i think everything will be fine. Rear springs take about 20 mins to do - really very easy so a garage can't really charge more than £50 tops for changing them. 

I bought some TTE springs some years back for (i think) £200, so i imagine that supplies should still be available

[Bper]

11 hours ago, Rhymes with Paris said:

Aye Bob,it has never missed a beat since it was new, apart from when the battery died while I was in hospital.

I only know this as I have known the car from new.

I bought it in September 2019 from the second keeper who is the lady friend of the original owner over the road.

 

 

Hi Paul,

Just a thought, have you tried a mobile repair guy as they are a lot cheaper and will come to you. It's worth a try if only to get a quote and compare this with a main garage.

It's always worth looking at other options you never know you might be lucky .👍

[Rhymes with Paris]

1 hour ago, corradovr6 said:

The way you've looked after your car Paul i think everything will be fine. Rear springs take about 20 mins to do - really very easy so a garage can't really charge more than £50 tops for changing them. 

I bought some TTE springs some years back for (i think) £200, so i imagine that supplies should still be available

Thanks Hasan, I am assuming 20 mins per side? And did you do that yourself or garage?

And £200 TTE springs was that a pair?

I know a few years ago, but that gives me something to go on .🙂 

BTW, did you sell your Tsport? I was hoping that you found a way of keeping it after all the work you put in.

 

 

[Rhymes with Paris]

32 minutes ago, Bper said:

Hi Paul,

Just a thought, have you tried a mobile repair guy as they are a lot cheaper and will come to you. It's worth a try if only to get a quote and compare this with a main garage.

It's always worth looking at other options you never know you might be lucky .👍

Good thinking Bob, thanks.

I will start having a ring round today to find out the best option, I have 10 working days to present for the re test,if I am to avoid the full fee again, and testing everything again, rather than just the broken spring.

[TonyHSD]

Hi Paul, 

sorry I am late to the party but I think here my drama from last year can give you some useful information about springs replacement. 

You can buy aftermarket as good as oem or same quality for lower price, look for KYB , can do eBay, Amazon, euro , carparts4less , many vendors. You can use this side to find the part numbers https://japancars.ru/index.php?route=catalog/toyota

and take it from there. For the rust treatment, honestly it turned to be just waste of time, although I enjoyed. The only parts that didn’t rust again in are the metal suspension beam and the cross bar. Another thing I learned from this job was that if you need to replace spring rubbers only use original Toyota, or the highest quality aftermarket possible because my cheap one were horrible and I needed to buy some from the dealer afterwards.
Diy job nicely done the car drives as good as new 👌 

[flash22]

The spring will specific to the Tsport (as you know they are jap built) as its lowered, do springs as an axle pair 30-40 min on a bad day to do the rears on a lift

Main stealer or try fensport

Tsport - NCP13

Toyota Part No. 48231-52390 - now what i don't know is if the UK spec uses a different spring type

[Rhymes with Paris]

Very useful information there, thankyou Tony and flash.

Main stealer has come back with £292.92 on the springs and ££50.33 on the rubbers for both sides ,parts only Inc vat.

Now waiting for them to come back on garage hours/price for fitting.

Useful enough, but the emphasis is definitely more on the "when would you like it booking in"and we are very busy and might not have workshop time available any time soon, rather than the information in total needed to decide if this is competitive.

[Rhymes with Paris]

No ring backs from local indy or main stealer,springcoil rings then goes dead.

Fensport doesn't want phone calls according to their website.

Tried a local jap specialist,quoted £193 all in for Sachs,£155 for kilen .

They reckon they can do it tomorrow.

Sounds ok, unless Sachs or kilen poor quality.

[TonyHSD]

1 hour ago, Rhymes with Paris said:

No ring backs from local indy or main stealer,springcoil rings then goes dead.

Fensport doesn't want phone calls according to their website.

Tried a local jap specialist,quoted £193 all in for Sachs,£155 for kilen .

They reckon they can do it tomorrow.

Sounds ok, unless Sachs or kilen poor quality.

Sounds ok 👍 These are good brands. 

[Rhymes with Paris]

28 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

Sounds ok 👍 These are good brands. 

Thanks Tony, that's reassuring 🙂.

I'm just fingers crossed 🤞 that the Jap specialist does what they say.

BTW,my above post looks a bit ungrateful for all the suggestions given, not intended that way , but it's as well to give actual experience of businesses to guide anyone else who may need them.

[TonyHSD]

56 minutes ago, Rhymes with Paris said:

Thanks Tony, that's reassuring 🙂.

I'm just fingers crossed 🤞 that the Jap specialist does what they say.

BTW,my above post looks a bit ungrateful for all the suggestions given, not intended that way , but it's as well to give actual experience of businesses to guide anyone else who may need them.

Yeap, hopefully they will keep their promise. I looked at the auto dock website with part number provided by flash and there are some blueprint options but I can’t really trust unless it’s 100% for your car, because in aftermarket parts often different parts gets cross reference between as suitable where they actually are not. Other than that I bough mine from there and they are in three days and all was good. https://www.autodoc.co.uk

[flash22]

Speak to the dealer's parts department and confirm part numbers, i would be wary of a shop willing to do it next day the springs are usually non stock for the Tsport

PM Devon or Partsking with your vin, the uk live epc is a paid service for me

edit. Both brands you listed state cars with standard suspension, what would be correct for a European car 324mm

[Rhymes with Paris]

Thanks flash, the dealer's parts department did not want to listen to part numbers, but did say that the springs were OEM.

After a lot of telephone tennis they finally came back with an estimate of fitting cost of £132 for 1 hour.

Added to the £343 approx parts that is £475, and no idea when they could do it, just pushing for booking in and they would let me know when they could do it,I would prefer to do the re test within the 10 working days,it was all a bit wishy-washy TBH.

The Jap specialist did not have any springs in stock,but said they can get delivery tomorrow, and said that they fully understood the difference on the Tsport.

I realise that if anything sounds too good to be true then it usually isn't , and yes I am wary.

But if I have monumentally messed up here, I will come back and detail how,or hopefully detail it is ok.

A bit tricky for me to order parts, receive them, and then get someone to fit them in time.

 

 

 

[Cyker]

Oh sorry, I didn't realize Fensport didn't take calls anymore; I called them about a CSC (Basically a combined clutch release bearing and slave cylinder) for my Mk2 way back when (Toyota wanted something like £250(!), but Fensport had one for £90...) and found the guy very helpful and knowledgeable.

Who's the jap specialist out of curiosity? 

[Rhymes with Paris]

1 hour ago, Cyker said:

Oh sorry, I didn't realize Fensport didn't take calls anymore; I called them about a CSC (Basically a combined clutch release bearing and slave cylinder) for my Mk2 way back when (Toyota wanted something like £250(!), but Fensport had one for £90...) and found the guy very helpful and knowledgeable.

Who's the jap specialist out of curiosity? 

Oh no problems Cyker, things, and companies change, I'm sure that they are still very good, but I don't have the time to email back and forth, order and get fitted and so on.

The specialist is JVS , Japanese vehicle specialists, formerly Toyotek.

I did give them a try a while ago on a small thing to try them out,a wiper blade of all things .

I did post on here somewhere about how they said that they needed the keys to take the car  "to where the wipers were" which sounded like nonsense to me.

But that one person at that time may or may not be still there.

So I will give the wheel another turn,if the Tsport finishes up with it's backside in the air like a mating baboon, then I will know that I have made a big mistake.

If they read on here, then a positive from me on a good job will hopefully be good for them.

But I take on board what flash says,he knows what he is talking about.