Mondeo steering issue

[Dr Jekyll]

An ancient (170,000 mile) Mondeo has very heavy and quite vague steering, it feels like the front tyres are very low on pressure but they aren't. Any suggestions?

[lee_erm]

Power steering fluid low? Ball joints might be shot too

[njw1]

What year is it? Mk3 Mondeos are well known for having steering racks fail.

[bungz]

njw1 said:

What year is it? Mk3 Mondeos are well known for having steering racks fail.

Mk4 are abysmal for it as well.

[eybic]

Worth getting the alignment checked, we had front lower arms replaced on our Mk3 and needed the alignment done afterwards as it felt awful and was well out of spec.

[Dr Jekyll]

Thanks everyone.

It's a 2006 car. Fluid looks OK and no steering shake so alignment can't be too bad. Steering rack sounds a likely culprit.

[E-bmw]

Dr Jekyll said:

no steering shake so alignment can't be too bad.

Don't see how those 2 statements go together, please explain?

[Dr Jekyll]

E-bmw said:

Dr Jekyll said:

no steering shake so alignment can't be too bad.

Don't see how those 2 statements go together, please explain?

Whenever I've had a wheel alignment problem it's been noticeable as a steering vibration above 69MPH or so. This car doesn't do that so I took that as a sign the alignment was OK.

[GreenV8S]

Dr Jekyll said:

Whenever I've had a wheel alignment problem it's been noticeable as a steering vibration above 69MPH or so.

I've never associated an alignment fault with any sort of vibration.

[Scrump]

Dr Jekyll said:

Whenever I've had a wheel alignment problem it's been noticeable as a steering vibration above 69MPH or so. This car doesn't do that so I took that as a sign the alignment was OK.

Are you sure you mean wheel alignment? Wheel balancing is the usual cure for vibration through the steering at that sort of speed.

[E-bmw]

^^^^ Wot 'e said.

[Dr Jekyll]

Scrump said:

Dr Jekyll said:

Whenever I've had a wheel alignment problem it's been noticeable as a steering vibration above 69MPH or so. This car doesn't do that so I took that as a sign the alignment was OK.

Are you sure you mean wheel alignment? Wheel balancing is the usual cure for vibration through the steering at that sort of speed.

That could well be it, I've had both done at the same time. Though I do remember a car that had that vibration after clouting a pothole at speed which I put down to alignment being knocked out.

[E-bmw]

Dr Jekyll said:

Though I do remember a car that had that vibration after clouting a pothole at speed which I put down to alignment being knocked out.

That would be a buckled wheel.

[ninjag]

Or buckled tyre.

[E-bmw]

You can't buckle a tyre, they are flexible.

[ninjag]

E-bmw said:

You can't buckle a tyre, they are flexible.

Yes you can, the tyre can be distorted out of shape by bad potholes etc. Road force balancing machine checks for both buckled wheels and tyres, the latter can sometimes be repaired by the machine if you are lucky. I suspect that cheap tyres are far more susceptible.

Edited by ninjag on Saturday 20th April 10:58

[GreenV8S]

Tyres can be damaged by breaking the internal structure, but that's not repairable. I've never heard of a 'buckled tyre' or any procedure to repair that.

[ninjag]

GreenV8S said:

Tyres can be damaged by breaking the internal structure, but that's not repairable. I've never heard of a 'buckled tyre' or any procedure to repair that.

I used to think the same until it happened to me not so long ago. They managed to make it true again but I fear it's starting to go again. I'll know for sure when a new set of tyres go on.

[GreenV8S]

ninjag said:

They managed to make it true again

How?

[ninjag]

GreenV8S said:

How?

Already said.