You'd think I'd know better, but apparently not.

I thought I'd treat myself to some new spring compressors to replace my ancient but sturdy old ones. I didn't want to spend too much as it's not something I do very often. So I bought some fairly cheap ones off ebay.

Did the first spring, great! Really nice and easy to use. Second spring; came apart nicely. I was really liking these. But putting the new spring in was where it went wrong. I was just at the point of putting the top mount on when one of the compressors broke apart with a hell of a bang! It sent the top spring cap flying right across my driveway, thankfully missing me and my car.

I got seriously lucky; if I'd been just a little quicker with the mount then my hand would have been on top of the spring when it went and I'd probably have broken a finger or worse.

Looking at the damage, these things are seriously weak at the point they join together; the joint is probably 1mm thick at best. Maybe there was a manufacturing defect on the one that broke, but it was just a matter of time really. They're simply not designed to stand up to the kind of stresses spring compressors deal with.

So yeah; cheapy chinesium tools can be worth a punt sometimes, but not when it comes to something as safety critical as spring compressors. Lesson learned!

Shame really, these worked really well for the 1.5 springs they managed to do. I guess I'll stick with my old ones that don't work that well, but have at least managed to last 20 years or so without trying to kill me.