New member of the broken spring club...

Driving out of the parking lot at work today and heard a bang. I had just run over a grate in the road and figured it was that. Drove home and didn't notice anything odd until I took the corner into my road a little hot and the truck keeled over like crazy. Pulled into the garage and the driver's side is about 2" lower than the passenger side. Look underneath, busted spring! I knew it was common but man I figured I might actually make a payment on it before I HAD TO work on it. I haven't even had it 3 weeks!

 

Sucks! Bud it happens, time for some after market springs so you dont have to worry about it anymore.

 

that sucks. ive been lucky so far with mine. to be fair though it looks like your truck is an 05 so 8 years old. though you havent made a payment its not a new truck.

maybe the previous owner shitkicked it?

 

The truck appears to have been babied and the service records show tons of preventative maintenance. According to the salesman at the dealer (they serviced it too) the guy was so fanatical about the truck a few of them wanted to buy it when he traded it in. Although it sucks and I think Toyota in general has gone downhill quality-wise I still like these trucks better than anything else out there. This is my 3rd second gen tacoma (all 05's one I bought new) and my 15th Toyota 4x4. I broke a leaf spring once before on a Toyota. About 23-24 years ago I jumped my 82 longbed about 6-7 feet in the air and landed on the rear driver's side first. It was a very steep incline I launched off. Broke the main leaf. This truck has probably never left the pavement and it doesn't even look like anything ever got hauled in the bed. But it does have 123k on it and this is a really common issue with these. Didn't happen to my other 2 and I definitely overloaded them both a number of times. Even jumped the first one a couple times! Oh well, I'll check with the parts guys at the local dealer in the morning to see if they have any TSB take-off's I can score for nothing. Otherwise I'll probably just put in a new set of replacement aftermarket springs. I don't want to start the lifted truck snowball again....

 

I dunno, the spring breaking seems to be more common on trucks that are never loaded. Lots of the cases of broken leaf springs that I've read always seem to start saying 'WTF, I babied this thing, never tow and never haul'. The loaded ones seem to have other issues with the leafs but they seem not to just snap.

 

Semi-local spring shop wanted $225 to replace the one leaf. Not bad but it doesn't address the other side and it's just a single leaf in the pack. So I just ordered stock replacements from general spring. Now we'll see how long it takes for them to get to NH from KS. Maybe I'll be swapping springs this weekend. I really thought hard about their 4 leaf packs but unlike many of you guys I don't want to start the lifted truck snowball. I'm 40 years old and have been through it MANY times. Now i've got to lift the front, then add bigger tires, then the MPG's go in the toilet, then change the gears to get the mileage back... I just want a nice stock truck with nice wheels on it. Of course now the wheels will have to wait a little longer....

 

A shop wanted $225 to replace a single leaf?!?!?! I'm surprised they could even give you a price like that with a straight face...

 

It's a good thing I called instead of going in person.... Yeah I thought it was a bit steep too. But that was installed. As long as the spring eye bolts and ubolts come out without a fight it should be an easy fix.

 

Start soaking them daily with PB Blaster or Liquid Wrench so when the install day comes, you have half a chance of breaking them free. Might not hurt to have new ones on hand.

 

I've got 2 other cars so I'm OK kind of chancing it not getting them. But yes much PB blaster will be applied over the next few days.

 

Might want to have some kind of heat like a torch. Big ass bolts/nuts sometimes don't want to come off after they have lived under a vehicle for several years. This is in addition to doing the above.

 

As a general rule, the ubolts and spring eye bolts are normally not reuseable...and I often end up taking out the spring eye bolts with a cut off wheel on a die grinder...

I usually approach these jobs with a an air impact wrench, cutting torch handy and cut off wheel. I am not good enough with a torch to cut just the bolts.

I could use some broken springs to make throwing axes with a forge.

Howard

 

I've heard (and agree) that the u-bolts shouldn't be reused but that's the first time I've heard not to reuse the eye bolts. Is there a reason why those shouldn't be re-used?

 

Please post a review once you get them on the truck. Thanks.

 

Because they generally come out HARD and require pounding/cutting. And they are generally CHEAP.

And if you are pulling the springs for repair, time for some new bushings anyhow.

BUT you don't need to pull the spring, just undo the ubolts, unbend the clips, cut the centerbolt and put a new leaf in. Your local spring shop should be able to supply the right leaf, precut, prearched and ready to install to make this a 2 hour job, with a torch and airgun.

Howard

 

True but I'm changing out the entire leaf pack on each side. And they come with bushings. I've reused all these bolts on previous Toyota trucks without any issues but of course I've had to cut a lot of them too. If I have to cut any of them they will obviously need to be replaced. So tomorrow night I'm going to move my Capri out of the shop and start taking it apart. If I need to buy bolts it's not a big deal. If it were winter and both my other cars were in storage I would have every piece of hardware involved before I started the job.