Sticky steering.

Over the past little while, my BMW E39 has developed what I'd call sticky steering. It no longer self centres properly. If you were to put on a small amount of lock and take your hands off the wheel, it would go round in circles. It hasn't got any heavier, and raising the front end shows no obvious friction, although I haven't yet disconnected the track rods to see if both sides turns equally easily.

Just wondered if anyone had come across this, and it was some form of common fault.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)
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That was a common fault on fiestas, they had a short connector piece (like a mini prop shaft) joining the rack amd the column, the piece has a universal koint at each end, when one or both joints get old they become stiff and give exactly the effect you mention, cannot be tested without removal of the shaft, since the stiff joint/s has no play.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

+1 on this. I had exactly this with an E32 7-series. 'Top' UJ on the column seemed to have been 'cooked' by the exhaust manifold, and all its lube had vanished. No chance of easily getting the damned thing out, so a squirt with a PTFE based lube delivered from a syringe through a long plastic tube sorted it for good.

JB

Reply to
JB

Right - I'll look at that, thanks both. Hadn't occurred. I was more thinking of a dried out bearing somewhere after the rack. I was told at the last MOT that most of front suspension would need replacing due to the rubber boots starting to crack.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Another possible cause would be a dead or dying bottom ball joint on the track control arm. Probably wouldn't be noticeable when wheel off the ground though, only when it's loaded.

JB

Reply to
JB

If they are bad enough to slow down the steering then there would be some horrible creaks going on as well (flashbacks to transit bottom ball joint failures, starting with a creak and stiff steering, eventually one wheel pops out sideways, I repaired several at the side of the road)

Reply to
Mrcheerful

Yet another possibility is that one of the strut top bearings is kaput. So the spring is trying to turn the wheel off centre.

Reply to
mbjorn

I had the most bizarre steering issue with a Fiesta XR2 about 25 years ago. It gradually got stiffer and stiffer until one day going down a local country lane we reached a corner and it wouldn't turn in. Nail the brakes and we slide gracefully into the herbage. Limp it home and have a proper look. An aftermarket immobiliser had been fitted previously and the wiring had been tucked under the dash. This had formed a rat's nest around the steering column, catching on the steering knuckles and getting tighter and tighter until eventually it locked the steering solid.

Reply to
Dave Baker

My mum had a weird steering problem on an HB Viva, suddenly no steering at all, the bottom rubber coupling on the steering column had broken (because it was under tension, probably because of botched repair work) the emergency fingers that should retain some steering could not reach each other and so we had no steering at all, happily no crash.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

You'd think things would improve:

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Quoting from the URL above:

Last month, Toyota hastily settled an Unintended Acceleration lawsuit hours after an Oklahoma jury determined that the automaker acted with "reckless disregard," and delivered a $3 million verdict to the plaintiffs but before the jury could determine punitive damages.

(from comp.misc)

Reply to
RJH

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