Recoil springs tend to be ignored until they cause problems. As a general maintenance rule they should be replaced immediately if they are bent of kinked. This usually happens during assembly or disassembly. They should be replaced, or at least inspected, if you experience failure to feed, apparent changes in the cycling of the action or a significant change in ejection of fired cases.
Recoil springs typically cost less than a 50 round box of ammo. They should be part of a shooters regular inventory of spare parts.