WARNING: With play/slack in the steering system, aspects of the vehicle's handling may become unpredictable and/or potentially dangerous. If you have excessive play/slack in the steering system, drive carefully until corrected.
2016 with ~76,000 miles. Parked at home wheels straight, came back from work on my motorcycle to find my car knocked up into the grass, wheels cocked all the way over. This was a hit and run. ** (suspected perpetrator of this incident at end)
As you can see in the photo, broke the mirror cover, knocked the (folded in) mirror mount loose at door, dented and scraped the fender above wheel well, touched the bumper, blew the tire after rolling up onto the backside of it, little paint missing from the face of the wheel. After driving up on ramps to swap the wheel on the street, I could tell it was driving on the tire sidewall. Noise from the steering column and can feel some binding when turning.
QUESTION: Does you steering column lock with the ignition off and key out of the vehicle? (mine no longer does)
$1,200 for a new struts, driver side inner and outer tie rod ends. I did not receive a pre-strut replacement alignment, but below is the post-strut replacement alignment sheet.
No longer feels like it's driving on the sidewall but is clearly not right. The driver side tire inner sidewall rubs when turned to lock. The passenger side I can stick my hand in there with plenty of room.
I told the shop this and was basically blown off, saying the suspension needs time to settle. Repeating the story of how it was knocked off the road into the grass, was again blown off. Was told to bring it back after having the body shop do their repairs.
It drives kind of like a truck, wondering the road. No more binding. Doesn't feel like it's driving on the sidewall. Still noises from the column. There's a lot of play in the steering. There's a rapid back/forth vibration from the column on certain sections of highway.
Its driving behavior is rather weird, sometimes inconsistent. It resists changing lanes, especially a slow lane change. But, it wonders and ping-pongs the lane, even more when attempting to accelerate aggressively.
Driving it for the first time since returning it home from the shop a week ago, rounding a corner Friday, the stability control oddly freaked out and nearly had me sideways. I could hear the passenger rear brake "roughing" hard as I worked to correct its course with multiple rapid steering inputs; barely managing to keep my (w-i-d-e) lane. Wouldn't surprise me if the left-lane driver that started following me after this, reported me as a concern to the police. Fortunately it was dry, not frigid pavement. Now I don't trust it with anything beyond leisure paced cornering. I do not trust it with quick inputs at highway speed. (potentially dangerous)
Having read the service manual (attached as PDF docs) I had overview / understanding that explains most of its weird behaviors. The EPAS (Electronic Power Assist Steering) system is rather complicated. It takes steering angle, user input, speed/force of input, vehicle speed into account when calculating assist. It gathers info from multiple computers. It also has a bit of programming to prevent what would be normal wondering with road surface changes; I suspect utilizing yaw sensors to tweak handling. In conjunction with stability control, torque vectoring, this is why its handling behaviors are now weird, even inconsistent. It's notably "weird" when driving straight and encountering (geometric) road plane changes. The sensors and reversible motor are all in the steering column. Nothing in the "steering gear", I think. (aka 'rack & pinion' from the old hydraulic assist systems)
Sunday (today) I took the time to put it up in the air and investigate. The driver side inner + outer tie rod they replaced, did nothing. There is a metric ass ton of play in the steering. So far it seems to be isolated to the rack.
Regarding the rub on driver but not passenger, the driver strut appears to be much closer to the inner fender wall, than the strut on the passenger side. I have no understanding on what may be causing this.
So at this point, I'm debating on whether to replace just the steering gear, or the entire cradle due to how well integrated it is with the control arms and ball joints. The steering ear is attached to the cradle via three bolts.
No trans, clutch, e-brake or half-shaft (axle) damage that I can tell. No knuckle or wheel bearing damage. (items that may get damaged when "curbing" or hitting a curb) Time will tell.
Attached PDF Docs:
2016 Ford Fiesta ST - Power Steering - System Operation and Component Description.PDF
2016 Ford Fiesta ST - Power Steering - Steering Gear + Tie Rod.PDF
==============================================================
** Couple of days later I get an email from the Amazon seller about returning a package that was never delivered to start with; while Amazon status itself was never updated. (now says package may be lost) The contractor normally pulls in front of my neighbors home to deliver packages. This time they hit (not clipped) my car. I've seen them come very close before; as well as back into a tree and clip mirrors. (they would've kept going that time too had a neighbor sitting on his porch not caught them) Many of these contractor drivers look like they should still be in a nearby high school.
2016 with ~76,000 miles. Parked at home wheels straight, came back from work on my motorcycle to find my car knocked up into the grass, wheels cocked all the way over. This was a hit and run. ** (suspected perpetrator of this incident at end)
As you can see in the photo, broke the mirror cover, knocked the (folded in) mirror mount loose at door, dented and scraped the fender above wheel well, touched the bumper, blew the tire after rolling up onto the backside of it, little paint missing from the face of the wheel. After driving up on ramps to swap the wheel on the street, I could tell it was driving on the tire sidewall. Noise from the steering column and can feel some binding when turning.
QUESTION: Does you steering column lock with the ignition off and key out of the vehicle? (mine no longer does)
$1,200 for a new struts, driver side inner and outer tie rod ends. I did not receive a pre-strut replacement alignment, but below is the post-strut replacement alignment sheet.
No longer feels like it's driving on the sidewall but is clearly not right. The driver side tire inner sidewall rubs when turned to lock. The passenger side I can stick my hand in there with plenty of room.
I told the shop this and was basically blown off, saying the suspension needs time to settle. Repeating the story of how it was knocked off the road into the grass, was again blown off. Was told to bring it back after having the body shop do their repairs.
It drives kind of like a truck, wondering the road. No more binding. Doesn't feel like it's driving on the sidewall. Still noises from the column. There's a lot of play in the steering. There's a rapid back/forth vibration from the column on certain sections of highway.
Its driving behavior is rather weird, sometimes inconsistent. It resists changing lanes, especially a slow lane change. But, it wonders and ping-pongs the lane, even more when attempting to accelerate aggressively.
Driving it for the first time since returning it home from the shop a week ago, rounding a corner Friday, the stability control oddly freaked out and nearly had me sideways. I could hear the passenger rear brake "roughing" hard as I worked to correct its course with multiple rapid steering inputs; barely managing to keep my (w-i-d-e) lane. Wouldn't surprise me if the left-lane driver that started following me after this, reported me as a concern to the police. Fortunately it was dry, not frigid pavement. Now I don't trust it with anything beyond leisure paced cornering. I do not trust it with quick inputs at highway speed. (potentially dangerous)
Having read the service manual (attached as PDF docs) I had overview / understanding that explains most of its weird behaviors. The EPAS (Electronic Power Assist Steering) system is rather complicated. It takes steering angle, user input, speed/force of input, vehicle speed into account when calculating assist. It gathers info from multiple computers. It also has a bit of programming to prevent what would be normal wondering with road surface changes; I suspect utilizing yaw sensors to tweak handling. In conjunction with stability control, torque vectoring, this is why its handling behaviors are now weird, even inconsistent. It's notably "weird" when driving straight and encountering (geometric) road plane changes. The sensors and reversible motor are all in the steering column. Nothing in the "steering gear", I think. (aka 'rack & pinion' from the old hydraulic assist systems)
Sunday (today) I took the time to put it up in the air and investigate. The driver side inner + outer tie rod they replaced, did nothing. There is a metric ass ton of play in the steering. So far it seems to be isolated to the rack.
Regarding the rub on driver but not passenger, the driver strut appears to be much closer to the inner fender wall, than the strut on the passenger side. I have no understanding on what may be causing this.
So at this point, I'm debating on whether to replace just the steering gear, or the entire cradle due to how well integrated it is with the control arms and ball joints. The steering ear is attached to the cradle via three bolts.
No trans, clutch, e-brake or half-shaft (axle) damage that I can tell. No knuckle or wheel bearing damage. (items that may get damaged when "curbing" or hitting a curb) Time will tell.
Attached PDF Docs:
2016 Ford Fiesta ST - Power Steering - System Operation and Component Description.PDF
2016 Ford Fiesta ST - Power Steering - Steering Gear + Tie Rod.PDF
==============================================================
** Couple of days later I get an email from the Amazon seller about returning a package that was never delivered to start with; while Amazon status itself was never updated. (now says package may be lost) The contractor normally pulls in front of my neighbors home to deliver packages. This time they hit (not clipped) my car. I've seen them come very close before; as well as back into a tree and clip mirrors. (they would've kept going that time too had a neighbor sitting on his porch not caught them) Many of these contractor drivers look like they should still be in a nearby high school.
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