Springs? Or not?

Seller broke rear spring. So he had both removed to even out car. Says struts are there, but no springs. Drives 5 miles to work so it’s no big deal. Wants 400 for car. Lots of new parts. But needs rear struts.image

For $400 you can’t expect much, but I’d be real, real careful with this one. Get it checked out. People who take the approach of removing the rear springs when one breaks are likely to have not maintained the vehicle at all. If your goal is to create a safe daily driver for your family, I recommend you keep looking.

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These things break rear springs ALL the time. MOST people replace the springs (duh). Since he’s been driving this thing with the rear jounce bumpers as the only spring, that puts tremendous loads into the rear structure. He may have damaged the structure because of that… BUT $400 is barely more than scrap value. Beware that this serious cheapskate may have compromised and WHOLE lot of other things as well.

Buy it, put in some Quick struts and drive it. Its worth a gamble, IMHO

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Take the springs off the front, and you have a low rider.

If you know what you are looking for and this is the only problem, it might be worth it. You can get strut/coil/mount assemblies on line for less than $200 for the pair. If the body and interior are in decent shape, it could be worth it. How long do you plan to keep it, and is $600 plus taxes, registration, and tags worth it?

I misread the post, I thought someone was going to pay the OP to take this thing. There has to be a better way to make a few dollars if you are going to resell this abused vehicle.

We don’t need no stink’n springs!

It’s puzzling, really… :confounded:
Why would anybody do that?

This isn’t a coil-over-strut spring/strut assembly? Why would anybody take them out, remove the struts, and put them back without putting springs on it? It’s not like they’re an option, 7 speakers rather than just 4.

5 miles to work might not be a big deal, but where I live a person couldn’t even stop for milk or bread, or gas at half the stations. The driveways to any of the grocery stores would bottom this thing out so much that a wrecker would be required to unstick it when it ran aground. :wink:

Unless those headlights adjust down enough it couldn’t be driven at night without blinding everybody. :sunglasses:

One can only speculate…
Maybe the owner had a bad experience once with springs. We had a guy where I once worked, Gordy, and the boss asked him to hook up a trailer to a vehicle and go pick up something.

Gordy refused. He said, “Boss, I like working here and I need the job. You can fire me if you want. I understand, but I don’t do trailers!”
We asked him why? What happened? He said, “Don’t ask!” :grimacing:

What make, model, model-year? It looks eerily familiar.
CSA

I see only a modest potential profit in this scenario

That’s assuming cheapo springs and nothing else wrong with the car, so that you can make a quick sale and get rid of it, before something else rears its ugly head

Those Toreasses don’t go for big dollars in my area, even the ones that aren’t missing the rear springs :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Other than the low-rider visual effect, it looks to be in pretty good shape from what I see. If a visual inspection on the lift shows little rust problems, and you are looking to turn it into a daily driver for someone, and make a little profit on the way, I’d say it was worth a go. It’s actually pretty amazing you can buy a complete & (mostly) working assortment of sophisticated parts and auto technology for only $400. If the whole thing doesn’t pan out, you have a backup, sell the parts one by one. You’d probably make more cash that way anyway.

Just my two cents. You have to have springs to support the car. Struts do not support anything, they just dampen the bounce from the springs.

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That’s what I indicated. They’re not an option. Out of tons of items listed on original car sale window stickers where they list power/heated seats, 7 speaker stereo, 11 cup holders, onboard vacuum cleaner, etcetera, I’ve never seen “springs” like it’s some kind of cool option that neighbors would envy. :wink:
CSA

You should get wrid of that Fix Or Repair Daily( FORD) before the gas tank touches the asphalt and explodes. :laughing:

As mustangman noted, it was common for those cars to break the factory springs.
I drove a car just like that for 15 miles with strut springs removed. No damage occurred.

If you’re interested in buying the car, have it checked by a mechanic, including any structural damage around the spring-less wheels, and including a price quote for installing cheap quick-structs.

Then you’ll have enough info to decide if you want to buy it.

I can look at this from two differing perspectives. One is that missing springs is the only major problem, then you check the body integrity and buy it.
The second situation is that one might think that this car has a lot of missing maintenance/repairs and the springs are just the tip of the iceberg.
At the end of the day, $400 is not a lot to gamble nowadays.

When I shop for a pre-owned car, missing springs or any other major suspension item, or major item of any kind is a definite red flag. :On the other hand, the price reflects this. It is priced $_____ above scrap.
CSA

I guess I was thinking leaf springs for some reason or separate coil springs. If its strut springs then maybe not so severe. At any rate either one, why in the world would anyone go to that bother to remove a strut spring when the same work could have replaced the bad one. Or maybe he has a cutting torch and used it on other parts of the car.

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An older used car without “red flags” may cost $2500.

With red flags, $400.

I have always gone for the red flag special and never asked for maintenance records, just made my decision based on the vehicle’s condition.