Front spring is busted; 99 Malibu

Navraj · #1 06-23-2006, 02:57 PM

Hey everybody. I have a 1999 Chevy Malibu, 3.1l, V6. Saw that the left side was lower than the right, the car was resting on the front driver side tire. I was lucky that it happened on the driveway and not while driving. Now Im wondering what to do. So i started looking around for any recalls that GM may have made but didnt find anything about it. Should I replace the strut too? How about the other side? Alignement? Clearly, Im not a car guy but I dont want to get ripped off by a mechanic. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

gmtech79 · #2 06-23-2006, 10:44 PM

Well I was gonna help ya until the "ripped off by a mechanic" came up, I hope that is not your view on every tech out there. Alot of training and equipment go into a quality technician. Unless you go to billy bob's lube shop. Look for good credentials in a repair shop, ie.. ASE certified and continued training.

Well, I guess anyways, now that I am off of my bandwagon. You need to replace the spring, I would do both sides and have it aligned. When it is apart inspect the struts and seats. However, you won't be able to do it without a spring compressor, if you do get a spring compressor make sure to elongate the lower mounting hole in the strut to allow for camber adjustment.

Navraj · #3 06-24-2006, 06:33 AM

Sorry bout that, its just that I dont have a trusted mechanic. I know there are honest mechanics out there but I just havent found one yet. Everytime I go to one the guy ends up finding other stuff i.e. new tires balancing and the guy tells me I need to rebuild the tranny, the one I just got rebuilt.

albung · #4 08-19-2006, 07:07 PM

mine just busted in driveway what a crock of poop theres no rust or corrosion gm needs to quit buyin jap metal wonder if i should buy all new non gm springs as i do not want this to happen again while drivin on freeway

cost 938.00 to fix one spring no more gm for me

john20 · #5 08-21-2006, 02:03 PM

holy cow, I wish I would have joined this forum a long time ago.. It would have saved me so much time and money.... My coil spring broke recently as well.. I didn't drive crazy, or jump curbs, nothing of that sort, it just snapped... I just bought the whole strut with the spring already compressed... buy a used one. I put it in myself and it wasn't hard to do. Get your tires balanced afterwards and have them check over your work. Depending on how you go about doing it, you might have a hard time getting it in, but once you do it's cake.

Good luck!
I have to go find someone who will buy my chitty mali.

johnholl · #6 08-22-2006, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gmtech79

Well I was gonna help ya until the "ripped off by a mechanic" came up, I hope that is not your view on every tech out there. Alot of training and equipment go into a quality technician. Unless you go to billy bob's lube shop. Look for good credentials in a repair shop, ie.. ASE certified and continued training.

Well, I guess anyways, now that I am off of my bandwagon. You need to replace the spring, I would do both sides and have it aligned. When it is apart inspect the struts and seats. However, you won't be able to do it without a spring compressor, if you do get a spring compressor make sure to elongate the lower mounting hole in the strut to allow for camber adjustment.

do i still need a spring compressor if i replace the strut and spring as a complete assembly?

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