308 noise from steering

[Auldalliance]

308, '08, 1.6HDi. Recently brought back to life after starter motor failure.

I've just been using it up and down the driveway to move a trailer with logs, and it's started making a horrible twang/clonk noise from the steering. Not a constant clicking with every revolution of the axle, but a one off as the steering moves through a particular position. Seems to be somewhere in the region of the driver's side.

Any suggestions for what this might be?
Have I buggered something up when I changed the starter?

[PaulC5]

Check the suspension coils in case one has broken. Can be other things but this is easy to do.

[xantia_v6]

Check the springs. Also check or replace the top strut mount bushes, as they are often torn, allowing the strut to move around causing metal to metal contact.

[RichardW]

If it's not broken a spring, probably the bearing between the spring and the top mount has disintegrated - if you turn the steering the spring and strut should rotate smoothly, if the top kags behind and winds the spring up before it then jumps round, the bearing is toast - they're cheap and nasty and are always shot when you take the spring out!

[Auldalliance]

OK finally found time to look at this and, yup, the spring has popped partly off. Haven't looked to see if it's actually broken but I don't see/feel anything obvious. So maybe it's that top bearing?

[Auldalliance]

Oh it's definitely broken.
Just had the wheel off and I've fished out two separate pieces of spring. One break looks fairly clean, the other is quite rusty, so the first bit must have broken off a while ago.

Nearest garage is about fifteen miles away... car still seems to be driving ok around my driveway... and if avoid full lock there are no horrible noises... but I'm assuming it would be a pretty big risk to actually take this out on the road like this?

[Auldalliance]

That's quite a lot of spring I think...?

[mickthemaverick]

That certainly is a handsome chunk gone missing in two parts!! Personally I would suggest that it is not safe to drive on public roads as a single heavy jarr such as a pothole may dislodge the spring completely causing all sorts of secondary issues. I don't know but it may even be illegal to drive as it would probably be declared at an MOT as dangerous. The safest course of action would be to have it recovered to the garage for spring replacement and I would advise replacing both springs as a pair.

[PaulC5]

Springs can move and cut into tyres when they break so driving is probably not a good idea as it could end up costing a lot more. If you are having to pay for recovery then you might try a mobile mechanic since it is not difficult to replace a spring with a couple of spring compressors and should be around 1 to 2 hours work.

[myglaren]

I was driving my daughter's C3 when a spring broke, didn't 'stab' the tyre but deformed enough that the coil rubbed on the tyre and wore through it and it went off with an alarming bang.

[Auldalliance]

Ok car is off the road until this is fixed. Thanks everyone!