Steering creak

[Zeke]

At about 14,000k my T developed the well-documented steering creak/click. My trusted service advisor suggested I wait a week or so for Ford's definitive fix, involving shims between the steering rack and the suspension cross-member.

So he did the proper fix and followed Ford's instructions to the letter, including tightening the bolts to 80 Nm. As soon as I drove the car away, I thought the creak was still there. A week later, it was fairly obvious that it was.

So I took the car back and he tried tightening those 2 bolts to an estimated 100 Nm, just as an experiment to confirm the cause of the noise. Problem solved...no more noise. We agreed to leave it at that rather than loosening and retorquing the bolts as it is clear thay need more torque than Ford specify.

Just thought that info might be useful to anyone else with noisy steering. It seems that, even with the new shims, the torque on the bolts needs to be more than Ford specify to get rid of the noise.

[Zeke]

I spoke too soon. 2 days of blissful silence from the steering and then the creaks started again. Back to the dealer tomorrow.

[XR6_ED]

Zeke,,, if ford cant fix it try a suspension specialist,,you may have to pay but it beats going back to the dealer every other day

[ubyte]

Ummm correct me if im wrong... isnt this covered under Ford's new car warrenty?

[HUSTLER]

yup, get them to replace the rack!! They had to on mine, now its perfect! Mines was so bad a one stage the car was virtualy undrivable, 100% of the time the wheel shook it was so bad!!

[XR6_ED]

  ubyte said:

Ummm correct me if im wrong... isnt this covered under Ford's new car warrenty?

It is ,,but why should you have to keep going back for the same problem...I couldn't afford to keep my T of the road day after day because ford have NFI..

Sometimes it is just easier to get a 2nd opinion on something and then go back to ford to tell them what the fix is

[jt]

They should have deburred the cross member before replacing the rack.

If they did it properly a your still getting creeks or what ever they should replace the whole rack.

[Flukey]

My T had its 15K service yesterday and the steering creak was the only thing requiring attention. Havent heard it again yet so fingers crossed its gone.

[Zeke]

I had the bolts retorqued and the creak is still there (but less than it was, so far). The service manager showed me the TSB, that details the fix that they carried out (to the letter) originally. It says that the "steering gear" should be replaced if there is any creaking or clicking after the fix has been done.

So there's a new rack on order for my car. What I can't understand is how the rack causes the problem, which seems to be a creaking noise originating from the bolted-together union between the rack and the cast aluminium cross-member. Shouldn't another rack be essentially the same?

Still. if it permanently fixes the problem, I'll be happy. "Ours is not to reason why"