Recon Steering Rack C5 2008 onwards

[wurlycorner]

Think it's the 4th and 5th characters in your VIN (so the 3 characters after VF7**************[VIN obfuscated, can be read by forum staff])?
Incidentally, if you do buy from rockauto use FF3B009D18A751 to get a 15% discount (valid until 5th Sept). I'm not affiliated with them at all, they offer a discount code on another forum I'm on for my preludes.

[Mikep511]

Hi Thanks to everyone who has tried to assist in this problem !!

Eventually hit a brick wall in sourcing a recon unit or getting a garage to remove my old one in order for it to be repaired ready for refit, so had to stump up for a new one ouch !!!!

Mike

[Stickyfinger]

I have PM'd you the cars passport....it may help

[Homer]

Hi Thanks to everyone who has tried to assist in this problem !!

Eventually hit a brick wall in sourcing a recon unit or getting a garage to remove my old one in order for it to be repaired ready for refit, so had to stump up for a new one ouch !!!!

Mike

Ouch indeed. My local garage flat refused to buy one from Citroen and insisted I left the car with him for a week and hired a car while it was being done because it worked out cheaper. He tried a few suppliers to get a reconditioned one to swap, including a couple I found on the web and had no joy.

I guess I'm lucky he has recently moved to a larger premises and had a corner he could put the car in.

Mind you if I didn't have the steel sprung version then he might not have even looked at it.

[GiveMeABreak]

Sorry to hear that - know the feeling after my steering rack started leaking on my 09 Exclusive. I took extended Citroen warranty when I bought it . I never bothered with warranties before given the fact that they are usually useless, but in this case I sure am glad. They replaced the steering rack under warranty (when I was shown the issue when the car was on the ramp - guess what was on the adjoining ramp? - another C5 tourer in for the same problem!), but shortly after that, I had clutch slip - not long after just having the Dual Mass Flywheel and Clutch replaced at 40k!

I told them I knew there are issues with C5 clutches wearing prematurely, but after 6k miles, this was a joke! On inspection, it was found that there was oil contamination on the disc which was causing the friction dust to accumulate and congeal, later found to be from the crankshaft seal - another common failure. All in all they agreed the clutch failure was as a result of a warranty covered part, so paid for the labour and the seals etc. I just paid £100 for the clutch, which given the £2600 repair bill I was more than happy to cough up. So far that's Tyre Pressure Monitoring valves all replaced, Crankshaft oil seal, clutch, Steering Rack, Driver Wiper Motor and Air Con Condenser all replaced under warranty to date!

[vborovic]

I'm so glad that I didn't have to do any of the above mentioned procedures so far on my car ... but am waiting in anticipation of what will come first ...

[Stickyfinger]

Where was the rot on the rack that caused the failure....or was it just the seal ?

[RichardW]

Where was the rot on the rack that caused the failure....or was it just the seal ?

I have fitted two of these racks so far, both times I used a new Citroen unit, as there was no refurbed units about.
I think it may be that one rack is for the fluid suspension car & the other for sprung cars.
I may get the unit I have refurbed. It is definitely rust on the upper part of the input shaft that causes the issue.
A bit of wax oil would probably prevent the issue from occurring.
Oh and yes they are £1000 ,

[Stickyfinger]

Thanks....missed that...mt bad

[old'uns]

my mechanic thinks it's mainly due to the position of the rack.
99% of cars probably up until recently had the rack tucked up tight to the bulkhead/floor area and the input shaft/UJ was accessed from inside and fairly well protected
for whatever reason he says the rack on an X7 is 2-3" away from the body with no protection from road crap, salt etc

[bobins]

Anyone know if the new replacement Citroen racks are modified in any way to stop this happening again, or is it going to become a new item in the service schedule : Replace Steering Rack Every 5 Years or 100,000 Miles whichever comes sooner ?

[GiveMeABreak]

Asked the same question myself when I had the work done - and no real answers given. As I mentioned in my previous post, when mine was in, there was another C5 Tourer up on the rack for the same job - but the insurance company weren't authorising repairs until the assessor came out to check it because of the huge parts and labour cost to replace. This was also tying up a service ramp for 2 weeks as they couldn't move the car with all the guts dropped until the Assessor arrived! As you can imagine they weren't very happy.

I did say that surely, if this is as huge a problem as is being reported all over various forums and owner posts on the Web, that the warranty companies would be pressuring Citroen / rack manufacturer to get a grip of the situation and sort this obvious design flaw out, as this must be costing thousands in claims - to say nothing of the private costs to owners out of warranty.

I'm sure on the Mk1 and Possibly Mk2 C5s there seemed to be loads of thick industrial strength clear plastic covering the steering rack union as I recall; whether this was to provide some additional waterproofing I'm not sure, but made sense. There isn't any on the X7s as far as I have ever noticed, so I asked them to make sure they give it a damned good greasing when they put the new one back in!

Of course if not caught soon, there is the added issue of knock-on damage caused through leaking steering fluid onto other components... Groan.

[bobins]

I did say that surely, if this is as huge a problem as is being reported all over various forums and owner posts on the Web, that the warranty companies would be pressuring Citroen / rack manufacturer to get a grip of the situation and sort this obvious design flaw out, as this must be costing thousands in claims - to say nothing of the private costs to owners out of warranty.

I'm surprised the whole sorry C5 steering rack saga hasn't prompted a DVSA recall...... but it's probably not safety related enough for that

[DickieG]

Out of interest did any of the cars affected have their undertrays missing?

[old'uns]

Mines still on.