Steering Rack Arm Broke.

Newbie question.

My daughter whacked the near side wheel on another car and whilst the other car has not received much damage, she has snapped the arm of the steering rack to the nearside tyre (as per red circle on diag below). Car is 52 plate and insurance have had estimate from garage for repair & have said it's a write off.
Garage did not take car away, just came, took pictures etc and have made estimate from that.
Can buy a new steering rack for £150 total.

What do you guys reckon to this tale of woe please?

Hello mzk90

mzk90 wrote:Garage did not take car away, just came, took pictures etc and have made estimate from that.
Can buy a new steering rack for £150 total.

yes, you can get a complete rack HERE or just the inner rack arm here and the control arm end (with the ball joint) here.




I have not see this set up for many years - brings back memories of green fluid

And you will need to get the tracking checked when its all in.

If you go for the complete steering rack, consider changing the track rod ends, if not inspect the ones that are on there.

Thanks for the info guys.

Do you think that I can change just the track rod and then try to get it aligned?

They didn't take the car in, just came and looked at it, which seems a bit odd to say how much damage there could be in order to write the car off via the insurers.

mzk90 wrote:Do you think that I can change just the track rod and then try to get it aligned?

Yes, but if its ripped the steering rack apart, you will need to change that too.

You have not included any pictures of the damage, but if only the inner track rod is damaged, you can change that. If the drive shaft CV joint is damaged, you can change that too. If the wheel is damaged, that will need to be changed.

You will need to inspect the steering and transmission parts on the side that was damaged, for damage and change any bits that are broken.

mzk90 wrote:They didn't take the car in, just came and looked at it, which seems a bit odd to say how much damage there could be in order to write the car off via the insurers.

Considering the cost of labour and brand new parts, it won't take a huge amount of damage to make the car uneconomical to repair. Taking the car away just adds to the cost when a few photos would do the job.

If the car is worth around £600 and a new rack is £550 from EuroCarParts its easily a write off.

If I grab a few pics tonight, could you look at the,m and let me know if there seems to be any obvious damage please? Sorry to be a pain!

Here are the pics.

Looks to me like the threads from the rack arm have snapped off inside the track rod.

You'll be looking at replacing the steering arm at least, and i'd replace both track rods whilst your at it.

Huxley309 wrote:Looks to me like the threads from the rack arm have snapped off inside the track rod.

You'll be looking at replacing the steering arm at least, and i'd replace both track rods whilst your at it.

Yes, I agree with Huxley309.

The broken part is this thing at ecp and the track rod ends are here on ecP if you don't bother with the dent, it will be a cheap repair

I'd like to thank both of you for your help with this. I will let you know how I get on!