A few month ago, I had a local service shop replace my ignition switch in my 1996 Dodge Ram 1500. This required him to tear down the steering column. After I picked up the truck, I noticed that my horn no longer worked. Since the horn was working fine before I took the truck in, we assumed that the mechanic failed to put everything back right.

Yesterday I took the truck to the dealer for other servicing, and asked him to see if he could straighten out the horn problem while it was in the shop. This morning, he called to tell me that I needed a new clockspring. He said that his serviceman had "tested" the clockspring and it was bad. A new one is $178.

My question is this. Is it easy to damage a clockspring? It seems very coincidental for the clockspring to fail at the same time that the steering column was being worked on. Any thoughts?