[zoomin]

I just discovered that my 2005 Titan SE King Cab(which I purchased new) has BOTHfront coil springs busted. I only discovered this by noticing a piece of the spring laying in my driveway. No indication of when this happened. No noise, no abuse to the truck no symptoms to speak of (other than I thought it had been riding more rough than I remembered. (I now know why)I pulled both front wheels to inspect and found the drivers side had an old break in the spring and then the new break that was laying in the driveway. passenger side also was missing a portion of the spring and showed that it was an old brake in the spring...........here's the kicker....... I had a company car that I predominately drove from 2005 until 2014 so my Titan only has 39160 miles on it.....what gives with these springs??? anybody else experience premature spring problem?//

 

[FishnAlaska]

Regardless of the miles, those springs have been used for 13 years, they are old. If they are old and had some rust, again regardless of miles, they could have broken easily. Miles really don't mean much when you live in a climate that can degrade steel (I'm guessing in Indiana they but some awesome solvents on the road in the winter time). All it takes is time for those to weaken and then one bad pothole and their broken. Springs have weight on them constantly, that is what did them in.

 

[zoomin]

That does make sense. The winters here can be kinda rough some times and your right... they salt the hell out of the roads around here. I just thought maybe this was a common problem that was known by other Titan owners. I had found some old recalls by Nissan regarding coil springs on their Versa automobile. Thought maybe they were having spring problems across other models as well. Thank you for your response.

 

[FishnAlaska]

My son has an 05 F150, only 45k miles, been in the shop multiple times for major issues, sucks when "it seems so new" with the low miles. I've put more repair money into his 05 with 45K than my Titan with 75k

 

[zoomin]

I'm convinced your right having thought further on your perspective. Metal fatigue, it happens, just like bridge beams or other structures. I remembered that I had a new Ford F150 prior to the Titan that had super low mileage because it sat unused quite a bit and had similar problems. The brake lines rusted horribly on that truck and needed replacing and even the engine oil pan started rusting and was going to rust all the through and leak! that truck was the same story. Like new but had issues of a truck that had seen a lot more service......weird. Well any way I do not have a company car any more, the Titan is being driven daily so hopefully in a weird way, the more I drive it, the less maintenance it will need. Ha... Ha.... Ha.... I just thought I might load up with some knowledge before I went to war with Nissan over poor quality steel in their springs. I have new struts and springs coming. (Monroe Quick-Strut) Oh yeah get this.......I've had to replaced the drivers side wheel bearing assembly and have now discovered the passenger side wheel bear needs to be replaced as well.(went with Timken) I have always heard that "just sitting" is hard on a vehicle. I'm proof of that! I guess the moral of the story is drive the **** out of your truck!!!! Thanks again for your response and your offering to help!!

 

[HRTKD]

Good move with the Timken bearings. There's a guy with a thread that bought eBay bearings and the assembly fell apart while driving. Wheel bearings are not a job you want to do twice. Then again, neither are coilovers. Do read up on the tricks to getting them in/out with minimal pain. The key is to disconnect the sway bar.

I had a set of Sway-a-Way coilovers on my Titan and they did great for 80,000 miles. They had stronger coils than OEM. I needed that because of the winch on the front.

 

[FishnAlaska]

I've reconfigured my front end so may times I can do a full coilover swap in a couple hours, including swapping out the springs.

 

[HRTKD]

That's getting it done quickly. My first (and only) time it took 8 hours and I had to get my neighbor to come over and help me. I think the 8 hours included running to the auto parts store to rent a spring compressor.

 

[zoomin]

Waiting for the parts to arrive to start the job. I was wondering can you get the complete coil over unit out of the upper and lower control arms without taking anything else apart? like the sway bar, ball joints? looks like they may wiggle and wrestle they way out and then back in....again this is a bone stock 2005 RWD truck.

 

[HRTKD]

Disconnect the upper control arm from the spindle. Disconnect the sway bar from the lower control arm. Remove coilovers.

 

[FishnAlaska]

I usually just loosen the crown nut on the spindle, don't take it completely off and the end links on the sway bar. I actually usually only do one bolt on the end link, but I have PRG end links and they articulate unlike the OEM ones. Pull the end links off while the truck is on the ground. jack it up, remove wheel, loosen crown nut, smack knuckle of spindle a couple times with a hammer and it will drop, take out lower strut bolt, remove 3 bolts above coil bucket, roll sway bar down and out of the way, pull assembly down and out. reverse procedure.

 

[zoomin]

There you go!.... the ABC of writing, Accurate-Brief and Concise. Thank you gentlemen! parts are scheduled to arrive mid week. I will post after job is done to inform how the job went. Thanks again!

 

[zoomin]

O.K. job is done. both struts and one wheel bearing completed without any real drama. On the passenger side I disconnected the upper control arm to get the old strut out and the new strut in. Drivers side strut came out and went in without removing anything. Seemed weird but I'm not questioning. The only thing I can add that may be new to the members is the use of a unique tool I had in the tool box. All six nuts(three per side) that hold the the upper strut plate to the truck frame were so rusty and corroded that no socket would grab onto them to break them loose and turn them off. The nuts quickly rounded off when tried. So I used Craftsman model #52166 10 pc. Damaged Bolt/Nut Remover/ Low Profile Bolt-Out. You drive the Spiraled, fluted tapered socket onto the nut or bolt head and the put your socket or wrench onto the "bolt out" and crank away! The way they are designed is nice. well made and a quality tool Unlike other "easy out" type of tools that break or strip themselves, these things have saved me three different times now on some heavy jobs like this and some starter bolts on my buddy's truck in a hotel parking lot once. The harder you turn them the more they bite!! They have held up well! any way I want to thank the guys who responded to my post and hopefully I was able to give back a little with the tool tip.