Had my spring seat and strut mount replaced this last weekend in anticipation for my 900 mile trip. The car made the trip with no issues until I got here. I made a pretty hard turn and heard a pretty numb metallic pop, the handling characteristics are completely unchanged and there is no obvious damage to any suspension component. A few minutes after the pop the car began making a crunchy-grinding noise on the left side whenever turning right or the wheel goes over a bump.

It appears to be spring related, the right side spring is straight and centered around the shock. The right spring seems to be off center, but still seated on the top and bottom. The outer edges of the coil are compressed while the inside (toward the engine) are about normally spaced (in reference to the right side). I plan on pulling an entire assembly out of a junk car tomorrow just to keep me moving while on vacation. But does anyone know what could cause this? I was thinking the strut mount was siezed up but not only is it 2 days old, it seems to spin normally when the spring is compressed. I think the shop jacked it up. They put the top plate on upside down. But I can't see that alone causing an issue.

 

It sounds like the wheel has relocated outboard and the sounds you hear are tire rubbing. Just exactly what allowed that movement, you will have to figure out.


That's just guesswork, of course. You can easily see the top of the strut, so you may be able to figure out what's wrong there.

 

I figured it out with the help of a friend. The spring wasn't clocked properly. I'm not sure how. I can't wrap my head around how it was put together like this, I've watched like 4 videos on how to do it and it seems so simple. Nobody even warns of this happening. The spring seat was put on while the spring was twisted. So essentially there is constant tension on the spring. This bent the hell out of my strut mount and I think the shock has a bit of an angle to it too. I'm not sure how the spring didn't explode into a million pieces. The crunching noise was the sound of the coils binding over each other. I wish I could post a picture of it, it's rather impressive.

 

When you assemble that, really, you have to clock the spring yourself. It doesn't really want to be in there by any natural forces, but once you compress the spring, of course it stays, because properly clocked it's as far down into the seat as it can go.

You can't twist the spring. The steering bearing and the strut piston are both free to turn, so it would just untwist itself. What you can do is twist the spring seat in relation to where it should be. If it's not seated properly, you just have 1000 pounds pushing on the spring seat and strut mount off-center. At least that is what I am picturing.