Power Steering or Steering Rack? Help


K

Kahulia

New Member
Joined
Sep 25, 2007
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12
Well, after 3 months of my car being in shops all over the state, someone finally took the initiative and fixed my smased in EK9. (Cosmetically at least). Since it looks nice, it doesn't seem like it would be too much to ask for it to drive nice as well i thought, but it doesn't. No shop that it's stopped by over the last few months seems to know what the hell the problem is with my steering so I'll try to get some help here.

Problem: The steering is really choppy. Basically meaning it feels like the wheels are turning through rocks everytime I turn either left or right. The wheel is also permantly locked in a 10 o'clock(ish) position that aligning the car repeatedly didn't fix.

I assumed it was the steering rack but i could be wrong...again.

Thanks!
 
Do you mean the steering wheel trys to spring back many times as you turn? Any noise with this problem? Got an aftermarket lsd?
 
The car is entirly stock (No aftermarket LSD) and there's no noise. It doesn't try to spring back into place or anything ot's just difficult to turn. I'd say it'd be comparible to the power steering going in and out while trying to turn and the car is parked if that helps.
 
If its been in a smack it could be a number of things.

Steering rack
Driveshafts
Unbalanced wheels
Suspension arms
Suspension struts
Springs
Shocks
CV joints
Suspension top mounts


The list goes on.

Without pictures of the crash and seeing what has been done and replaced, it will be impossible to diagnose straight away.

Sorry.:(
 
Here's a picture of how it looked when the accident happend. The resolution is less than perfect because it was with a camera phone but it's all i had at the time. All the repairs done to it we're only cosmetic unfortunantly. It'll be back in the shop after new years for a considerably more indepth look over.
 

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like said it could be lots of things. i would go for the cv joints or bottom ball joint to. what does the car feel like to drive. when u put the foot down does the car pull to one side then the other.
 
Right....

By the looks of it then you was T-Boned and not scrapped down the side.

From the pictures you can see that the are the skirt runs along seems ti be straight, so there doesn't appear to be any kind of crumpled flooring.

You can see that the wing is pushed in below the side repeater lens, so impact to the drivers wheel would probably of happened too.

The wheel may be buckled, damaged in other ways, this impact could have bent / damaged the suspension arms, struts, shocks, mounts, CV joints, etc etc.

Best thing to do, is jack it up on both sides and have it on axle stands.

Pull and push on both wheels heavily and see if they move in ways they shouldn't.

Get someone to turn the steering wheel and you check for and unneccasery movement or fouling of any parts.

Take the wheels off and inspect the brakes for warped discs or seized calipers.

Inspect the suspension arm (Lower and higher), grab the suspension strut and try to move it about, it should be locked firm and solid.

Look at the CV joints. Is the boot split? If not, push about and see if you can feel the bearings inside.

Grab the driveshafts and try to move them about. same as the steering rack.

I reckon if you did these inspections yourself, you will probably find the problem or get a better idea of what is wrong. A garage may not do these things for you and you may get charged silly money to replace something that is not needed!

These things I have mentioned shouldn't take more than an hour to someone who knows how to use a jack and axle stands. You don't need to be an expert in mechanics to do it.

Let us know if you decide to do it and what the outcome is. ;)
 
Well I took it to one of my favorite shops in the area that used to do some work on my old cars and they told me it was in fact the steering rack. It's a good chace it was cause by the towing though which is unfortunant because now I'll have to deal with getting them to pay for it. But in the mean time, I plan on ordering an RHD steering rack (hard to come by in the States) from japperformanceparts.co.uk. Has anybody had any experience with them?

Thanks
 
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