Hello all.
I took my Rover 214Si into Swains Garage in Hythe today to have a new cam belt put in and to have its coolent/power steering/etc levels topped up.
My mother drove it home as I was at work from 9am-7pm today, and she informed me when she picked me up in her car that the Rover had 'heavy' steering.
I was rather concerned at this, because one of the reasons I chose the car was because of how extreamly light the steering was, there never used to be ANY weight in it at all. I got into the car when I got home intending to drive it around, but before I had moved 2ft forward I noticed an extraordinary difference in the steering.
I've driven cars with no power steering before for a long time, but nothing can compare to how rigid the steering is now in my Rover. It's going straight back to the garage tomorrow morning.
But I'm wondering if it's 'safe' to drive. I notice in the manual it says that one can drive it in an 'emergency' if there's a steering problem, but "only if the drive belt is removed." It's so rigid that I'm concerned that I may actually break something in the engine while I'm making my way to the garage.
Do you have any suggestions about my next course of action? They must have KNOWN something was wrong with the steering when they drove it out of the workshop (unless they did the levels and changed the cam belt on the street where it was parked!) - it's that noticeable.
Do you have any idea what may be wrong with the steering? I'm no expert at all but unless they've put sand in the fluid, it seems that something may be wrong with the drive belt (or perhaps they haven't put it back on.) But I don't see why anything but the cap of the fluid container would need to be taken off.
--Nick.