That's what happened to mine. Snapped near the bottom and a horse shoe shaped piece of spring fell off. This left the rest of the spring to slide down the strut, jamming itself hard against the inner wall of the tyre.
Luckily it wasn't the sharp part of the spring where the break was that pushed against the tyre, so no damage to tyre. Luckily again, the spring didn't touch the flexi brake pipe or the pad wear sensor wires (no ABS fitted). Even the CV boot escaped damage. However, it did slightly graze the steel brake pipe near where the flexi joins it on the inner wing . The pipe wasn't deformed at all, the the protective coating was scraped off, so I put some Hammerite on it to protect from corrosion. Only an area 2" long was grazed.
Sounds like I got off lightly and cheaply
compared to the Pug. Paid £58 for the Monroe spring plus compressors for a tenner. Should have got better compressors, but the Ching Chong ones I bought took all the abuse without problems.
Was a real pain though because when I first discovered it, the van was parked at the bottom of a long, narrow driveway. Because the spring was hard up against the tyre, you couldn't steer and it was virtually impossible to move the thing. Don't know how it would have come out of there to be towed, so was really forced to do it myself, in situ. When I first discovered it, I let the tyre down to relieve the pressure on it, but there was still pressure anyway. When I removed the wheel, there was no way I could have got it back on with the strut in place.
The joys of car maintenance.
Ian