Couple of inches play in steering wheel?!?

[braddy]

Hi all, just a quick one. does anyone else have a bit of play on the steering wheel. i.e. When turning left, I turn the wheel about an inch to left before any effect occurs on front wheels, and the same for going right. When i'm driving in a straight line on motorway i have to keep turning the wheel backwards and forwards from left to right to left (a couple of inches each way) to keep going in a straight line.
It may be perfectly natural, but only just noticed it doing it after I've had the car for a couple of weeks. I may not have noticed before as I was concentrating on not stalling it!

[RichB]

Sounds like an old Zodiac I had with a good few inches play in the steering joints! Certainly wouldn't expect that in a modern car - indeed if my TVR was like that I would stop driving it and take it to the nearest dealer for repair! Rich...

[greenv8s]

that sounds scary, like maybe a pinch bolt missing from the steering column? I don't think I'd be happy driving a car like that!

[Alistair H.]

get it looked at. could be wear in steering column, or simply play in a joint somewhere.

[simonsparrow]

Mine had that when I bought it, if you look behind the drivers side front wheel, you'll see a little universal joint. This is what transmits movement from the wheel to the steering rack.

When you see the environment it has to live in, don't be too suprised if its worn out

From memory, it wasn't too bad to fix, cheap part and about 2 hours labour.

[braddy]

Cheers for that Simon - a little bit of good news at least! Don't mins quite as much if it's not going to be too dear. Need a couple of other things doing so will get it booked in and get them all done at same time

[Julian64]

Not so much as a caterpillar nipple amount of play in mine.

I know this cos I was looking at it this afternoon while staring at the damper which needs replacement and wondering how an old used spark plug came to be lying across the brake pipes just below it.

[davetherave1970]

Maybe I'll get mine looked at also as I have some play. Not quite as much as Braddy

[kevin63]

Have had this problem and all that you have to do is jack the car up on the drivers side and take the wheel off and make sure the nuts on the universal joints on the steering are tight. Mine wer'nt and when tightened the steering was spot on.

[braddy]

Cheers Kevin, I'll give that a go. I like it too, coz it's the cheapest of the suggestions so far