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Corsa C - Limited Steering

Vauxhall Corsa C - 2001. The wife complained she was having problems with not enough lock on the steering.

It was minus 5 frost that morning and she thought the steering might be frozen up! I said the low temperature shouldn?t make any difference but checked the steering and found only one and a half turns lock-to-lock.

She borrowed my Focus to the shops and I had a look at the Corsa. I jacked up the front, took the front wheels off and had a look underneath to see if anything was jamming the steering ? it all looked OK. I tried it a few more times and still only got limited movement.

I left it until the afternoon when the temperature had risen to about plus 7 in the sun and the steering had returned to normal with about 3 turns lock-to lock. Put the wheels back on, gave it a test drive and it drove normally so I thought that was the end of it. Same thing happened this morning with another hard frost and it returned to normal later when it warmed up. It has not happened on cold winter days in previous years.

Does anyone have ideas about the likely cause of this?

Cheers ? John W

Reply to
John Weale
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Not heard of it causing this particular problem, but they have fully electrical PAS. It's pretty unreliable; stepson's failed in under 12 months on a new car.

The motor has an over-temperature overload cut-out. If you do low speed manoeuvres with soft tyres, the motor cuts out, making the steering very heavy. Perhaps it was something like that happening?

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

Water in the hydraulic fluid?

Tim

Reply to
Tim+
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I'm pretty sure the Corsa C is purely electrical PAS, so no fluids involved.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

If (I think it does) have electric power steering column then it may not have enough battery power when very cold. (Foci do this for sure)

Vauxhall electric columns have lots of problems from an early age.

If the column has no power for instance the steering is incredibly heavy, so if the column thinks you have stopped putting pressure on to turn (due to the dodgy little finger things that sense the movement giving up) then the steering might go so heavy that you think it has stopped turning lock to lock.

Other slim possibility is the universal joint at the bottom breaking up or loose, but I cannot see how that would be OK later.

An interesting piece on fixing the torque sensors is here:

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Reply to
MrCheerful

I think I have found the cause of the problem.

I had a look at the lower universal joint on the column and found a chunk of soaking wet foam rubber which had somehow become detached from the padding and was wedged in behind the UJ.

The water in the foam had frozen due to the very low temperature and the retaining bolt head was butting against the now solid foam restricting the movement.

The rising temperature during the day thawed the ice and movement returned to near normal

John W

Reply to
John Weale

We live and learn, I bet someone from Finland would have known straight away.

Reply to
MrCheerful

Or low battery voltage on a cold morning? My Fabia would noticeably dim the headlights on a heavy steering load on a cold day.

Reply to
Chris Bartram

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