Broke a rear spring on the drivers side. Has this happened to anyone else?

Did you replace with stock springs or go with someone else?

I was going to do the shocks since I had the springs out - what kind of shocks do you recommend?

I saw "Volvo S40 Shock Absorber Bilstein Brand" - $123 for a pair on amazon or there were some gabriel shocks for $107 each.

Is it easiest to jack the whole back end up and do both at the same time?

Looking for a recommendation

 

I recently found a piece of the passenger side rear spring of my 2000 V40 sitting on the ground under the car. A few days later I was standing next to the car when I heard "ting.....clank, clank" and sure enough a piece of the driver side rear spring was now sitting under the car. Looks like corrosion and cracking was the culprit in both cases.

I'm going the low cost route for replacements - BOGE 25J980 springs from RockAuto - $43.79 each.

 

Bilstein is good I had them.For the springs you can go different but make sure the lenght and the spring rate are the same.You dont wanna end up with a high/soft rear.Replace both side.Given the age of your car should consider all four to be replaced if they are still the originals.The factory shocks are going out about 50-60K on these cars.

 

The factory struts last longer than 50-60k actually on the old S40s. The front struts on the 04.5+ leak all the time though .

 

Actually most of the cars doesnt have a longer lasting shock absorber but what happens is that the driver gradually gets used to it as it goes bad.Some of them goes real bad some of them are not as noticeable.In Europe the shocks are being tested for function at the time of inspection on a machine.If out of specs the car fails.Insurance company has the right to refuse to pay if the car took longer to stop than it should and it turns out it happened because of the bad suspension.It doesnt has to leak to show it is out it just doesnt do its job.A novice driver only does notice the first time when he/she lose control on a sudden directional change while the car is driven a little more vigorously or when the car refuses to stop on time showing that the ABS is in work but couldnt stop.
This part is cheap for a reason as it does go out frequently.Factory shocks on the PH2 s40 is made by Monroe BTW which is a POS.