Suspension suggestions?

[JohnL]

my way of testing if my dampers were dead or not was kinda initial-d ish. you pretty much know something is wrong if you're driving on a perfectly straight and flat piece of road and the water still bounces everywhere.

? I don't understand!

and i dont think its powdercoating, unless these springs had more than 5mm of powdercoating.

The spring coating is quite thick, not 5mm though, and I'm 99% sure it's some sort of powdercoat. It's certainly thicker than paint. If it's lifting in places and generally roughed up it might possibly give the impression of being thicker than it is(?). Peel a bit off and see.

In any case I can't see the "chunks" being depressions in the steel, flying stones etc certainly couldn't cause such damage, and not even severe corrosion is likely to be that bad (unless they'd been left in salt water for a few years!). Even considering that the springs are exposed to the elements and that the protective coating is damaged, IMO they just wouldn't stay wet long enough for more than surface rust to appear, even after 18 or so years (also considering that they are good quality steel, and good steel as a generalisation tends to corrode less than poor quality steel).

I've seen old leaf springs that have been sitting exposed in paddocks for decades, and while they'll be rusty there would be no corrosion on them even remotely close to 5mm deep, unless they were at least partially buried.