Nigel1943
Active Member
- Posts
- 350
- Location
- Tamworth Staffs
Down in Cornwall over the hols with my TD5.
Having driven down the M5/A30 etc and various local trips over a period of three weeks, the day before I was due to return (M5/A30 again), I was returning from a day out and driving up a dual carriageway at 70mph ish when I decided I needed a pee so turned off the carriageway down a convenient dark lane, turned into an opening, got out, had my pee, got back in the car and bless your life had absoloutly no steering whatsoever, the steering wheel just turning in my hand with obviously no connection to the wheels.Closer inspection revealed the ball in the draglink trackrod end had pulled thro its housing rendering the steering useless!
Given that the car had been MOT'd on the 19th November 2012 and completed less than 1500 mies since it's pretty obvious that the MOT tester hadn't spotted wear in the joint and maybe not the year before either.
I have to say that I do my own maintenance but leave things like this to my MOT tester. Not any more !
I would have expected there to be some loss of feel to the steering prior to this but there wasn't.
Now, apart from the fact it could have killed me and my partner I ended up having to get the car flat bedded to a garage and repaired costing me some £220.
Moral of the story is CHECK YOUR BALLS before you don't have any!
Having driven down the M5/A30 etc and various local trips over a period of three weeks, the day before I was due to return (M5/A30 again), I was returning from a day out and driving up a dual carriageway at 70mph ish when I decided I needed a pee so turned off the carriageway down a convenient dark lane, turned into an opening, got out, had my pee, got back in the car and bless your life had absoloutly no steering whatsoever, the steering wheel just turning in my hand with obviously no connection to the wheels.Closer inspection revealed the ball in the draglink trackrod end had pulled thro its housing rendering the steering useless!
Given that the car had been MOT'd on the 19th November 2012 and completed less than 1500 mies since it's pretty obvious that the MOT tester hadn't spotted wear in the joint and maybe not the year before either.
I have to say that I do my own maintenance but leave things like this to my MOT tester. Not any more !
I would have expected there to be some loss of feel to the steering prior to this but there wasn't.
Now, apart from the fact it could have killed me and my partner I ended up having to get the car flat bedded to a garage and repaired costing me some £220.
Moral of the story is CHECK YOUR BALLS before you don't have any!
