Attention all Vette owners WARNING!

[bowmanm]

I just parked my vette in the garage and hid the door closer as I was walking out of it. I then heard a loud bang and went back into the garage. The garage door spring had broken and flew into the side of my Vette. I now have the perfect imprint of the spring on my left rear quarter panel. Check your springs and be sure they are not binding or in bad shape .

 

[vette-dude]

Oh man!!! That is one of my worse nightmares. I dream that I come home and carefully park the Vette in the garage and hit the button to lower the door. As it comes down the spring breaks, the door comes off the track and falls on top of the car. Thank God it is only a dream ( I hope not a premonition). I do check the working mechanics of the door quite often just in case!!!:eek

Sorry to hear of your accident. Is it fixable or will you have to replace the quarter panel? What a bummer!!:cry

Randy

 

[bowmanm]

I believe it can be fixed but as with anything else on these toys it won't be cheap. I never even dreamed that something like this would happen to her. I guess all I can do is remember it as a lesson learned.

 

[KOPBET]

Sorry to hear about your accident. Replace the spring and add a steel safety cable down the middle to keep the pieces from growing wings if it breaks.

 

[vetteguy]

I have had garage springs break but luckily not hitting the car. They do come w/ safety cables now to prevent this. Sorry, Guy

 

[Corvette-Pilot]

Bummer :cry

To think, we give our babies a safe dry place to park at night and look what happens ??

 

[richscorvettes]

As Kopbet has suggested, adding a steel safety cable is a good idea. Places like Home Depot sell them all made up. Another option is converting to the torsion bar/spring arrangement as that style, even if it breaks, will just spin on the bar.

When I was about seven I had an "interesting" experience opening our garage door a little too hard. The door went up, broke the rope that was supposed to stop the door from going too far and the top section went right off the end of the rails swinging about two inches over the roof of my fathers new car! :eek Replacing the rope with a steel cable was a good idea for that one as well.

Rich Lagasse

 

[KOPBET]

... Another option is converting to the torsion bar/spring arrangement as that style, even if it breaks, will just spin on the bar...

But I would not recommend doing this on your own unless you have pleanty of experience with the torsion spring setup. Let a garage door shop do it. It doesn't cost much.

 

[Erik S. Klein]

I prefer the screw-drive motors and had those installed in my garage when I finally replaced the crappy cantilever garage door my house came with. This type of setup is much safer and tons quieter.

 

[compyelc4]

I find it hard to believe that a horizontal-mount tortion bar spring broke bad enough to actually leave the bar that it is wrapped around. I have heard of a side-mounted spring/s letting go and doing major damage to garage walls, cars, etc.

Please clarify...was it one of the two horizonally mounted springs mounted to the header of the garage door, or was it one of the single-door side mounted springs?

Ted

 

[*89x2*]

I just parked my vette in the garage and hid the door closer as I was walking out of it. I then heard a loud bang and went back into the garage. The garage door spring had broken and flew into the side of my Vette. I now have the perfect imprint of the spring on my left rear quarter panel. Check your springs and be sure they are not binding or in bad shape .

I have had a few broken garage door springs - older ones had zero chance of parts flying as they were overhead of the door and when they break, they just snap and stay around the shaft...

The "new kind" where the door has a pair of springs (one on each side) should have a steel cable running through them and should they snap, they will remain up & in place - Sounds like they were not installed correctly...

Sorry to hear about your Vette though

 

[bowmanm]

This one has a spring one each side and the right one broke. The door was installed by a contractor about 4 years ago and he did not have a cable down the middle of the springs. You can bet though that the new springs will have the cable. I was able to buff most of the marks off the car but there is still a place about 2 inches long above the wheel that is into the paint. I am just thankful that it did not put a hole through the fiberglass.Thanks for the information on the saftey cable.