My 02 went off the road months ago. Suspension wise I have already replaced the rear axel and had it aligned a few times. It seems no matter who aligns it the steering wheel is still off considerably and it pulls to one side. How would I know if say the steering rack was bad and that was keeping it from being aligned.

I don't think the car is capable of being aligned right now...

Thanks,

Mark

 

Bent strut, bent control arm, there are a # of possibilities

 

The alignment of the rear suspension on the 5th Gen Maxima cannot be adjusted. So you might wanna have the front suspension checked.

 

I think he knows that, hence the steering rack question.

 

He knows that but maybe not the person who did the alignment.

 

Thanks for trying bsetiawan but I am aware of that because I installed the rear axel myself. Also when most places do an alignment they usually use a 4 wheel alignment machine even if they cannot adjust the rear (it allows them to at least reference the rear). I would hope I would know if it was a bent strut and it would take a lot of force to bend a strut (meaning the front end would probably be VERY damaged if a strut was able to be bent)

I am looking to figure out what the symptoms are for having a bad steering rack.

Thanks

 

Depends on the severity of the damage. I hit a curb and fried my control arm, , and couldn't get the car aligned for shyt. Turned out to be a bent strut.

 

Wow. I guess it is possible. Did you have to take it to the dealership to find that out. Also, how much did it cost for whatever shop to find out what is wrong. One thing I am scared of is a shop charging me crazy amounts of money to find out what's wrong.

Today I brought it back to the original shop and it is still off a little. It feels like the alignment changes slightly as I drive. It feels like it changes from one minute to the next. One minute it is a little off to the right and one minute it changes. No matter what if you let go of the wheel the car pulls to the right.

Mark

 

my 2k2 steering rack went bad. something inside of it was grinding.

when you went off the road, did you hit anything?

 

i didn't hit anything per se. I ran over some very small stumps. My steering definately doesn't grind at all. Front end definately seems more floaty than it should.

 

how big os a stump? probably bent something like a lower control arm.

 

i would say they were 3-4 inches off the ground. Only about 2 inches in diameter. Could that have bent one? If I were to take the suspension apart (which I will in a few days when I'm off) and looked at the control arms and some other front end components how will I definately know if something is bent / twisted? The part that scares me is not knowing a method of telling whether a part NEEDS to be replaced. Replacing components that don't need to be could get expensive real quick..

 

just get your car up on jackstnads or a loft if you have one available and just look around. look at the control arms, sway bar, subframe, strut and stuff like that to see if something is bent before you start taking it apart.

 

i will definately take your advice vsamoylov. Just replaced the front tires with Falcon 512s. Will have to see how those work out.