Originally Posted by Clockwork

instead of using a spring compressor tool, which can sometimes fail, the safer way I've found is to remove wheel, place jack under wheel hub or control arm and jack up, compressing the spring/strut, and then undo the bolts at top of strut tower, and then lower the jack slowly and then this way the spring can expand safely and then you can remove the spring off the strut assembly and proceed with repair job.