While driving down the road (route 20, traveling East, down town northborough, MA, speed ~20 mph) as vehicle passed over a railroad expansion type joint, the left front coil spring broke. Approximately.5 to 1 second after loud metallic noise ABS light came on. Pulled car over to side of road and could not find anything obviously wrong, continued home cautiously ~ 1/2 mile. Upon further investigation found a piece of the broken coil spring hanging down from the left front half shaft. Disassembly of the front left wheel allowed for the evaluation of the damage caused by the broken coil spring. It became clear that the broken piece of coil spring had struck the ABS wheel sensor line, ripped the left front outboard cv joint boot and wrapped itself around the half shaft. I felt lucky in knowing that the brake line that was ~ 2 inches to the left of the ABS sensor appeared undamaged. Had the very sharp broken piece from the damaged spring hit either the brake line or the tire at highway speed it could have caused a catastrophic brake failure or a tire blow out. Had the vehicle continued to have been driven with the sharp broken piece of coil spring wrapped around the half shaft it could have caused additional damage, most likely a cut brake line. In talking with Honda customer service they felt there was / is no issue (even though I raised the issue of safety), yet my own research has shown that the coil spring on the Odyssey has been investigated in the past with no finding and many failures are documented across the internet. Replacement of the coil spring, strut, ABS wheel speed sensor, and cv joint boot are required to fix the problem. Since a spring failure from the left side has occurred, the spring along with strut on the right side will be replaced as a pre-caution. I have both pieces of the broken coil spring in my possession, my initial investigation does not point to corrosion as the likely cause of the spring failure.

- Northborough, MA, USA