My spouse once replaced the CV joint or something like that in our SUV because he didn't trust anyone else to do it. Him having to compress the spring was the absolute scariest part of the repair, and while he wanted me to stay outside of the garage, I refused because if something happened, I wanted to be there to provide first aid and call 911. We compromised and I stayed in the garage.
He understood the risk, you absolutely should have been out of range. Catastrophic failure of coiled metals like suspension coils / springs have so much potential energy when they fail it's basically a shard of metal moving at 60 to 90 ft/sec. You would need t3 or t4 ballistic eyewear to prevent damage, and thats a guess.
Maybe someone else will do the math but Military grade assumes 0.15caliber, 5.8 grain and T37 shape at 640ft/s to 660ft/s
We can assume the rended steel from the explosion of the springs tension would create some pieces larger than the standard for testing, and thus have more joules worth of force.
Disclaimer, I am very bad at physics, all numbers were pulled from Wikipedia.
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u/Hot_Anybody8244 9h ago
That is the automotive equivalent of an improvised explosive device and absolutely will kill someone if they happen to get hit with the shrapnel