Hi,

Am new to the forum, so sorry if this has been brought up before. I bought my 10 reg Fiesta from a Ford dealer in Glasgow in 2011 (was only 9 months old with 3K on the clock, and previously owned by the wife of the manager of the dealership!).

I took it into my Ford garage (where I've been getting my services/MOT etc done) to get looked at because I was concerned about a funny twang type noise in the steering when I was reversing or turning slowly. I'd also noticed a slight pulling to the left when driving slowly, but nothing that was actually affecting the steering of the car.

I have now been told that it needs the steering rack replacing and they've recommended checking the tracking on my wheels. I need the car fixed (and safe to drive!) for a business trip, so I can't argue my case too much right now, but I want to know whether there's a case for Ford to answer here. I've seen that people have had similar problems and that sometimes Ford have paid out for this fix. The facts as I see them are:

• A Ford approved garage has been regularly servicing my vehicle throughout its life
• It had a service and its first MOT only 3 months ago
• I drive my car sensibly and it only has 32,000 on the clock in 3.5 years

Should a problem as major as a steering rack needing replacing have been picked up at its service? What causes a steering rack to fail / need replacing?

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!

_{No, the rack should not fail at such a low mileage given that it is a simple mechanical rack not a more complex hydraulic one.}

_{What has actually failed? The rack itself or the power assistance motor?}

Are you sure its the steering rack and not the column?

I think this is a well known issue for the fiesta, there even exist a TBM for this problem. The steering column gets replaced under warranty.

My warranty have exipred, so I had to buy the part from ford and replace it myself. Easy job, and the part costs £130.

But you`ll have to make sure what part you have problems with first.

Hi,

Yes, my mistake, it was the steering column and not the rack. My car is just out of warranty now, but the woman at the garage said they were unaware of any "known issues" with the column and I didn't have time to argue with her about payment for it as I needed to car to drive down to London for work. I intend going back to them and complain about it. Just wanted to see if other had experienced the same thing and whether I should be fighting my corner on getting some sort of goodwill contribution out of them.

Thanks

You should put up a fight :) (You got nothing to loose right?)

Well, under waaranty they would`ve replaced the complete column. The advice I got from my local dealer was to try to spray some joints in the column with new grease, this didnt work. And I had to replace the lower shaft of the column.

Its a known issue.

Heres a link to the Ford document /TSB:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0k1iu64fjmjhmei/tsb11-10-28.pdf

Thankyou - that's excellent. I'll go back to them with the TSB and complain about not only about my repair, but also having to do their job for them and find this!

Thanks for your help - will let you know how I get on!

What sort of twang?

The other steering noise which happens at very low speed as you've described is the strut top mounts. This is more often described as creaking which is the rubber mount being rotated against the painted metal up in the turret sticking and then giving. The strut should be turning in its bearing and leaving the rubber mount where it is.

Our car was doing this at 5K 9 months old. The original parts have been superseded so it's either a cost saving that went wrong or just a bad design change.

We've traded one noise for another as it seems like they've destroyed the wheel bearings putting it back together.

We purchased a 2011 Fiesta Titanium Auto in May for my wife, within a few days of starting to drive the car she complained about a clunk in the steering at low speed? I drove the car and noted the same clunking from the general area of the steering/suspension, unfortunately I did not have time to return the car to the Ford Main Dealer before going away on business, I am taking the car in tomorrow armed with all the previous information on this known problem and will provide feed back from the dealer