I was stuck in the middle of the night somewhere far away in Africa, Cameroon. I spent the night sleeping in the car counting on God's guarding angels to stand by me until morning. Morning Came and I had to hire a car to go get a Mechanic to come and check for possible solutions. Thank God I found one who could patch the spring and permit me move the car to a safer environment. I drove for about 300kms and the springs gave up. they broke for a second time, thankfully enough I was within the city limits. My Car was towed to a garage that till date I haven't been able to source a leaf spring. Its sucks to see that a Car such as the H3 which is supposed to be meant for offroad driving can have this problem. We buy the H3 in Africa because we feel it can go places, go to where there are no roads but my hopes became my worst nightmare on the 11th of March 2016 when I saw how the Toyota Hilux zoomed pass me on my Breakdown.

Initially, my problem began as a very strange, unusual pull to the left in the steering (Had to keep the steering wheel about 1/3 turn to the right to keep the vehicle straight). I drove the vehicle to Tire Discounters and they informed me that they had to adjust the front wheels almost 3 degrees to center the wheel.

It was good for the first day or so, then I heard a loud BANG and the vehicle started pulling VERY HEAVILY to the left, and then it strangely started pulling to the RIGHT. Upon inspection, it was discovered that the right rear leaf spring had fractured, allowing the right wheel/tire to contact the inside of the wheel well (Thus the sudden pull to the right). The spring had fractured at about the top of where it was formed around the bushing. Based on the rust pattern, it seems that the spring fracture had started gradually until the catastrophic failure here recently.

A quick google search revealed that there are quite a few people out there with H3's in this failure mode, in exactly the same spot on the leaf spring. I have logged a complaint with NHTSA (Tracking number 10838131). If ANYONE else experiences this failure, I recommend that they call NHTSA immediately (Vehicle Safety Hotline Toll-Free: 1-888-327-4236) so that they can add the necessary information to help complete their investigation.

Holy cow, I would have thought you were sitting in the passenger seat. The exact same thing happened to mine. Only I was in the middle of a State park with no cell service! 3+ hours to get my way towed back to home. I'm an extremely handy guy but this was way outside of my improvised fixing ability! All from a pot hole!, my mechanic says it must have rotted and he's never seen anything like that. Both leaf spring will have to be replaced and not until after the Holiday....without transport for 4 days, the big SUCK!

how in the world does a lea fspring on a 2006 h3 break from hitting a 3inch deep pothole!

leaf spring broke right on the forward grommet mount. right passenger rear.cost aprox for new leaf spring 300.00. to fix god only knows but i cant drive to dealership because this caused right rear wheel to shift backward 1 inch away from wheel well and also bent one of the other suspension arms mounted above rear leaf spring. thus my rear wheels are crooked.

can this be fixed at home!! does anybody know!