Hi all,

 

I've been playing with this problem for a while now. Local skoda dealer thinks he has a root cause but I'm not 100% certain. Thought I'd throw it out to the group and see what anyone thinks.

 

The car....Superb 2, 2012 pre FL. 2.0 TSI DSG with 101k miles. Full Skoda service history.

 

The problem

Getting vibration through the steering wheel across all speeds. Can also feel it through the fire wall on the passenger side (not really practical to put feet on the bulkhead behind the pedals).

Has been there a couple of thousand miles now and I think getting worse.

It is gently noticeable at 30mp and by 70/80mph really noticeable - about 2mm of movement in the seams on the steering wheel. After a couple of hours I have a permanent buzz in my fingers. Seems to be completely independent of road surface and totally regular. I'm therefore thinkig not wishbone bushes.

Has on two occasions produced enough vibration to be noticeable to passenger - once up a steep hill, once accelerating out of a motorway services.

Vibration is however always present, on load, off load, turning and with gearbox in neutral or drive.

No pedal vibrations.

No noticeable additional noises - doesn't sound like a classic failure of wheel bearing, CV or DMF.

Vibration is not noticeable in any way whilst stationary.

Seems worse once hot.

 

I'd initially thought inner CV joints / bearings but the lack of noise stopped me pulling everything apart.

 

What I've done so far

Brakes and discs were changed not long before this started.

Tyres were again changed not long before this started for various reasons. Different brand and shop fitted fronts and rears.

After fitting tyres had 4 point alignment done. Guy who is normally very reliable had real trouble finding true centre. Needed 4 goes.

Have swapped tyres and wheels around. Makes no difference.

The also did another alignment. So now back to puling left at all times.

Has been on the ramp and had everything spun and waggled. Local garage couldn't find anything wrong. After 3 attempts has said give up and take it to the dealer.

Took a Skoda tech for a long test drive.

He reckons it is either the universal joints in the steering column or the electric power steering rack.

Having put it on the ramp, he can't access around the sub frame to see the bottom universal joint and make a final determination.

He reckons the vibration is the wheels "wagging" either side of the set point due to slack in the system.

 

What I'm looking at

Seems that this has to be a Skoda job as there are no pattern parts out there for electric steering racks and it needs coding.

About £700 in labour

best case a steering column £300

worst case an electric steering rack £1000

ouch!

The good news is that the third party warranty should cover up to £1000 but need to talk to them tomorrow to check the excluscions.

 

I'd welcome any thoughts or experiences from anyone else on similar issues. Do you think Skoda tech is correct?

I've done a bit of searching but steering racks don't seem to be a particularly common issue. Any known issues?

Lastly I'm thinking to talk to Skoda. Would welcome past experiences from anyone who's done this with a high mileage vehicle.

 

Slightly tempted to offload it but at the same time, it's a lovely car that I've only had since November so would take a big hit.

 

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

 

 

 

 

Why is the car pulling to the left if everything is aligned? Can this be explained by a steering colomn fault? What is Skoda's opinion on that? Steering rack is more likely the problem.

Assuming that Skoda are correct and it is steering column / steering rack. Given that the relationship between the steering wheel position and the wheel position is a little "looser" than it should be. When you set the steering wheel straight ahead to do your alignment, there is no gaurentee that the wheels are also trying for straight ahead. Which part of the system the slop is in, they don't know.

 

Why do you say the steering rack is more likely? 

Cheers