Wandering steering

30

Asked by GuruTRSW9 Jul 14, 2018 at 09:51 PM about the 2004 Ford Explorer XLT Sport V6 AWD

Question type: General

Explorer still wanders after sway bar links
and bushings, outer tie rod ends, upper
control arm and ball joint, wheel hubs
struts all replaced. Rack and pinion?

7 Answers

103,225

Could well be, a bad rack can feel like wandering steering. That's too expensive a repair to guess at, I'd let a pro determine if it's bad or not. You might find some good guides on Youtube on DIY diagnosing a bad rack and replacing it. Depending on undercarriage rust, may want to check all frame mounts too.

1 people found this helpful.
43,930

KenF is correct. My next guess would be to check tire pressure all the way around. My Jeep did that because of too much pressure on Winter tread tires.

7,465

Did you happen to get a proper wheel alignment also? What kind of tires are in it? I ask that because lower profile tires and or ones that are more squared off where the top meets the sidewall will pull you around as they follow the imperfections in the road

1 people found this helpful.
30

Man everyone my first time trying this and such quick responses. So tired are new in November and are 265/70R16 with good pressure. I haven’t tried rotating them. It hasn’t been aligned because it was it desperate need of upper ball joints and wheel hubs. It drove fine up until a month ago and started wandering and gotten worse. There is much left to replace but the inner tie rod or rack so I’m getting frustrated. At least it hasn’t been throwing money at the problem, everything replaced need replaced

3 people found this helpful.
7,465

Check the front wheel bearings for play before being too presumptuous that it's the steering rack, if they weren't preloaded properly it could cause them too develop a little bit of play. All you need to do is float the front tires, grab the top and bottom of the tire and see if there's any play. While you have the tires off the ground grab the front and rear of the tire and try to move it left to right, if there's play there and the other wheel is moving with it that would indicate a bad rack

2 people found this helpful.

Found out I had a broken rear shock. (Ford has a recall on 2013-2015 escape) hope this helps..

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