Focus steering rack

My mother in law has just had a wheel bearing done and the mechanic advised her that the steering rack needed replacing.

It's a 53 plate 1.8TDCi, done about 100k, is this likely/normal? I've never known anyone have to replace a steering rack.

I drove it about 100 miles a few weeks ago, it felt OK to me.

If it does need doing what sort of cost? I bought her the car and if it needs doing i'll never hear the last of it so i'll probably get it sorted myself.

Reply to
R D S
Loading thread data ...

Autodata lists 1.7 hours. Mr Haynes suggests it requires the front subframe dropping a bit; this theoretically needs an alignment tool to replace, but marking before disassembly would suffice. Some folk claim to have done it without disturbing the subframe, but it looks a bit tight to me!

Doable as a DIYer if you can get the car fairly high up.

Anything can fail on any car of that age-mileage, but to my knowledge not a common Focus fault.

What did the mechanic suggest was wrong with the rack? Did he quote a price?

If it's leaking, it would be advisable to keep an eye on the PAS fluid level until it's fixed.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

Power steering presumably? Probably beginning to leak. Or could be a worn inner ball joint.

If it's leaking, an exchange unit is probably the way to go. If the ball joint, they can sometimes be replaced along with the trackrod.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)
[...]

It would be tricky to do the ball joints in situ.

A non-OEM exchange rack is around 90UKP; ball joint plus gaiter is around

23UKP per side.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

Don't know the Focus, but on most cars the end of the rack is quite accessible. Has to be as the track rod wiggles about quite a bit. ;-)

The big snag with cheap exchange ones is how well they are re-manufactured. For example, I'd always fit new inner ball joints regardless. Do 'they' for only 90 quid?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

many inner joints need to be replaced on the bench due to the special tools needed, a superb example is the ones on the renault megane picasso, to change the rack boot needs the track rod removing, which cannot be done on the car. So a left hand rack boot (a common mot problem ) ends up being a small fortune to fix.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.