Picked up a 2006 vRS around a week ago and quickly started noticing how sloppy the steering is. Jacked it up last night to see if there was some play in the wheel bearing or steering arm and found this: https://youtu.be/2Ya5BQY6Yj8

 

For clarity, the other wheel is on the floor, and there is around an inch of play in the wheel. The hub and ball joint look solid, and the arm itself is moving which suggests to us that the play is in the rack itself.

 

Any thoughts or experience on this?

 

EDIT: For some background the issues when driving are severe pulling to either side, which seems to correlate with the camber of the road and general sloppiness at slower speeds. There is also an audible click when wiggling the wheel when stationary, and manoeuvring in car parks etc.

 

(Apologies for wobbly hands and portrait mode on the video, I was trying to manoeuvre a work light simultaneously!)

Edited 15 September, 20178 yr by fiftythreethirtynine

Could be inner track rod if the outer one is ok, does it do it the other side?

Going to have a proper look this afternoon in daylight, so will let you know. It definately feels like both sides when driving.

If it turns out to be both sides and the outer track rods have no play then it could be both inner rods or as you say the rack although even play in one side can feel like it's both while driving, hopefully the other side is ok and it's just the one side inner rod.

I'd hope a previous MOT would have issued an advisory for that and it does look/sound a lot like you need a pair of new track rods, ECP used to sell TRW complete with TRE at a very good price.  Normally that issue does not just turn up over night, maybe check previous MOT for that car on the "MOT checker site"?

 

Edit:- I'm only suggesting that both sides would need changing as you don't want to need to repeat some of this work, that is what I did with a 2002 Polo - ie got reported in an MOT, so got in there and cleared that area up.

Edited 15 September, 20178 yr by rum4mo

1 minute ago, rum4mo said:

I'd hope a previous MOT would have issued an advisory for that and it does look/sound a lot like you need a pair of new track rods, ECP used to sell TRW complete with TRE at a very good price.  Normally that issue does not just turn up over night, maybe check previous MOT for that car on the "MOT checker site"?

Yeah I'd agree that's a lot of play there it would have taken either the rack or rods a while to show that much play and some play would have been picked up in 12 months.

Previous MOT states "SLIGHT play in steering arms". I definately wouldn't class this as slight. MOT was only a number of months ago.

 

Does this scream dodgy MOT or is the wording just vague?

Edited 15 September, 20178 yr by fiftythreethirtynine

Humm, in the case of the 2002 Polo, I had not noticed anything, but after getting that advisory, I checked by rocking the steering wheel, wheels on the ground, and there was a very very slight bit of movement accompanied by a knocking at each "end".  It should be obvious when you disconnect the TRE from the hub carrier, a "good" inner steering rod should be able to support the hanging free arm, a well worn one will drop right down, and you will probably even feel slack in that inner swivel joint.

3 minutes ago, fiftythreethirtynine said:

Previous MOT states "SLIGHT play in steering arms". I definately wouldn't class this as slight. MOT was only a number of months ago.

 

Does this scream dodgy MOT or is the wording just vague?

It's an awful lot of play to happen in less than 12months and if only a few months ago it was apparently slight I can't see it getting that bad in that time to be honest, that's huge, must feel like driving on ice, bet it pulls you all over the road?

2 minutes ago, T2000 said:

must feel like driving on ice, bet it pulls you all over the road?

 

Yes, and yes. Funilly enough I didn't have any issues during test drive.

 

It's not too bad when driving around town (it just feels lose), but on a straight road the pulling is very noticable. It improves at higher speeds.

Edited 15 September, 20178 yr by fiftythreethirtynine

Does the rack move in it's mounts did you notice, could be the rack mounts are knackered, bushes can degrade pretty quick.

Didn't see; was pretty dark last night when we got around to looking. I'm thinking I'll just take it to a suspension specialist after work for a thorough look over.

Edited 15 September, 20178 yr by fiftythreethirtynine

Let us know how you get on.

I'd think that you would have missed this during the "test drive" if you had never had a VRS Fabia before, as the excitement of buying a newer and probably more powerful car would probably kill off any ideas of checking things out?  If I'm being honest, it would have done for me!

It was the opposite. I'd been driving a rental with delivery mielage for a month beforehand and prior to that, a 2015 Ibiza FR, so any older car is bound to feel less refined. Also during the short test drive there wasn't much opportunity for the issues to arise.

Edited 15 September, 20178 yr by fiftythreethirtynine

@fiftythreethirtynine - The swivels in the outer rod ends (and indeed the lower ball joints) are all case-hardened, so they wear quickly once the case hardening is worn through. I've seen one case (on a Renault) where a ball joint went from MoT advisory to destroying the inner shoulder on the tyre down to the tread belts in 4 months.

1 hour ago, KenONeill said:

@fiftythreethirtynine - The swivels in the outer rod ends (and indeed the lower ball joints) are all case-hardened, so they wear quickly once the case hardening is worn through. I've seen one case (on a Renault) where a ball joint went from MoT advisory to destroying the inner shoulder on the tyre down to the tread belts in 4 months.

Yeah but from the video I can't see any TRE movement or balljoint movement, for BJ you would grab top and bottom to see movement, that is definitely rod or rack I'd say

Thanks guys. I'm not using the car this weekend so I've booked it in for an assessment on Monday morning. Will report back.

48 minutes ago, T2000 said:

Yeah but from the video I can't see any TRE movement or balljoint movement, for BJ you would grab top and bottom to see movement, that is definitely rod or rack I'd say

Fair enough; my point was the general one that you can wear out an outer rod end or a lower bj in a few months after a sound MoT.

14 hours ago, KenONeill said:

Fair enough; my point was the general one that you can wear out an outer rod end or a lower bj in a few months after a sound MoT.

Yeah totally agree, once the rubber splits grit gets in and destroys them pretty quick, I've had some TRE's hanging out in the past.

one other thing to look for - any sign of tracking adjusted recently. Some ignorant folks in fast fit places come up against a stiff track rod end and get the heat out. Bang goes grease in TRE, leading to wear a few months on .

Dropped the car into the garage this morning. Have been thinking about the issue over the weekend and now suspect it may be a worn steering gear. It occured to me that the issue is worse in warmer weather or once the car is warm. This made me realise it could to be due to lubrication or likely an internal issue; and  after some reading, the symptoms match perfectly with steering gear wear.

 

Will confirm this afternoon (hopefully).

Got the report from the garage - it's the steering arm ball joints. I was definately expecting it to be worse.

 

So now the pressing question is, are the steering arms as easy as the trailing arms to replace without dropping the subframe?

@fiftythreethirtynine - Inner or Outer rod ends? The only "hard part" of replacing the outers is setting the track angle correctly afterwards. I've never done an inner.

Steering arms are inners, track rod ends are outers, or am I mistaken?