The Nissan Club banner

05 SE-R rack pinion repair quote

18K views 7 replies 6 participants last post by  smoove7 
#1 · (Edited)
My steering was slowly getting worse which began as squeaking which I thought was belt over time the steering began to feel tight, loose, tight, loose etc. Took car to mechanic and they said the rack & pinion was leaking and needed to be replaced. Quoted me 1000 to fix which includes 3 hours of labor and offered me 1 yr 12k or 2 yr 24k warranty. (if they can do it cheaper should I get refurb or go brand new? I would think might as well get brand new) Now that I think about it why would they offer warranty on refurb.

SE-R has 86k miles on it and of course ran out of extended warranty 02/12. Though it is an SE-R I have never tracked it or beat the crap out of it driving and I am surprised by this. Car does have Eibach prokit installed.

Any ideas on price and is this an item that it is normal to go out around 90K?

I love nissan (have owned nissan vehicles for 16 years) and will say this is the first big item that needed replacing in 5 years of owning this car.
 
#3 ·
I had my rack and pinion replaced a 3 years ago (50k miles). It was covered under my extended warranty. It wasn't leaking, kind of an odd situation. The shop couldn't get my car to align properly and determined that there was an issue with the system not balancing the pressure properly, causing the power steering to build pressure on one side, causing the car to pull. The cost with parts and labor was about $650. I don't think they used oem parts and 30k miles later it's still good.
 
#5 ·
Just to update this post I had a friend in my town who knows a local mechanic and his work well. He did the labor for 290 and the rack pinion assembly with lifetime warranty cost me 415 so instead of 1100 dollars I paid 700. Very happy with that decision and so far after install so good.

I asked him why the rack pinion would go out at 86k miles and he immediately asked me if the tires were stock or a different size. I have 245/40/18 instead of stock. He said it could be that the tires being wider caused them to grip the road more which causes the rack pinion to work harder to turn that grip so it wore out sooner. I dont know if that is true but it sounds logical.
 
#6 ·
The steering issue doesn't have much to do with the rack and pinion. The U-Joint is common to get rusty and cause the steering wheel to go stiff, loose and stiff again. The fix is spray PB blaster on the U-Joint and let it soak it it does the job, temporary. The real fix is get the u-joint $100 bucks roughly installed.
 
#7 ·
OP did you have any vibration issues with the old rack?
 
#8 ·
I did have slight vibration issues with the steering and knowing my luck I still found a way to get ripped off. He probably sprayed fluid on the u joint and took my 700 bucks. All he told me was the noise I was hearing when turning the wheel was because there was no ps fluid left because it had all leaked out and the noise was the ps pump running dry.

Maybe I could take the car somewhere else and have them look and tell me if the rack and pinion was actually replaced?

I dont think I got ripped off but in this f***ed up world we live in I would not be surprised.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top