I Need Help Fast!!!

[therealturbofan]

Alright, i'm about sick of this... please people, i need some advice. My saab has developed an interesting steering problem. about 90 degrees from center steering, the steering hits some sort of detent. you can still move the wheel, but it is with great difficulty. if you move it through about 20 degress of difficulty, it's easy to move again. from there it will move about 180 degrees, then hits another 20 degree detent. after returning back to center, it does the exact same thing in both directions and it's always in the same place... the detent never moves. my dad suggested it's a u-joint in the steering mechanism. we tend to think it's upstream of the power steering because the pump doesn't sound any different when it's going through the detents. I'm about fed up with this car. does anyone know how difficult these are to replace? i'm so busy and this car has me working on it way too much, always leaving me wondering if it's going to get me where i need to go. this is pretty much the last straw... if this is going to be very hard, i'm gonna end up letting her go for like $1200, which is such a shame cuz she's a beautiful car. please advise as soon as possible, i really don't want this to be the straw that breaks MY back.

[NSE]

I had similar symptoms on another car and a mechanic told me it was the steering rack. I never replaced it, so can't say that's what it was for sure.

[Jezzadee]

It could be the universal joint at the foot of the column like your dad says - the grease dries up and it will become stiff, so that might need replacing. That is if you are lucky. The other scenario is that it is the power steering rack. This would usually be worse when cold, and is known as 'morning sickness' - try a search on the words for the exact symptoms. A new or reconditioned rack is the only permanent cure - I've seen them for $180. Changing the fluid could help, as it could be contaminated or just old - it probably won't cure it, but it might make it easier. Many cars have a point through which the steering is harder to turn, and they go on for years quite happily. If yours is as bad as you say, I'd suspect the rack, but it's worth ruling out the other two cheaper options of universal joint grease and fresh fluid.

[cdaly]

Definately the universal joint. I hit that 3 years ago and had a moment of panic. It's easy enough to replace but you might try spraying it with penetrating oil and working it back and forth to see will if free up.

[therealturbofan]

the funny thing about it is that it happened suddenly. on friday night i drove it home (about a half hour drive from my college dorm) and it was totally fine and smooth. on saturday it sat all day. sunday evening rolls around and i wanted to go to my girlfriend's house (about a 10 minute drive) and it was completely honked up. it was just sortof weird at first, there were detents but they weren't that horrible. so i was there for a few hours, then i came home. this time the car became very difficult to drive. by the time i got to my house it was tough to get past the detents without veering sharply once the detents were overcome. very erratic driving, other drivers probably thought i was drunk !! i left the car idling for about 5 minutes as i was looking for something inside my house and when i went out to park my car it was virtually impossible to drive. the wheel still turns, but it's real ugly.

if the steering rack was bad, wouldn't i hear the power steering pump working really hard? and there's no grinding at all, it's just really hard to turn.

maybe it's just a greasing problem, but it seems a little worse than that... any suggestions to get to it easily? it's really tough to get to...

thanks so much for all your help!

[evanXspg]

I have no advice for you(sorry) other than don't give up man. I know you're getting bummed, having these cars leads to many "saab stories" but they're awesome and well worth it. I can't count how many times I've been on the side of a highway scratching my head but my 900's have gotten me from coast to coast and I've driven all around Salt Lake. whipping up your Utah mountains in a 900 is a blast.
Good Luck.

[therealturbofan]

here's the problem though. i need a reliable car, i'm in college and have NO extra money, and this fall i'm going on a mission for 2 years and i need money. i am so far upside down and i'm sure there are other things going bad... i'd love to keep the saab, and maybe i'll own another one someday, but whether this is an easy fix or not, i'm going to be selling the car very soon and for probably very cheap.

[therealturbofan]

alright, so for the last week and a half i've been driving my brother's 1995 Pontiac Grand Am. it's a quad 4 with an automatic. i've never driven a car in which the transmission works so poorly. tonight i got so sick of driving it and wondering at its disgusting appetite for fuel that i got pissed of and decided to drive my saab back to college instead of the "grandma" despite the steering problem.

so tonight it wasn't as severe, but it's still pretty tough to drive... i'm still wondering how it could happen so suddenly. one day it was fine, left it sitting overnight, then it's all messed up.

is there any harm in driving it this way? please answer asap... thanks!

[cdaly]

Have you gone hunting for loose bolts or the like? If suddenly, it's possible that a nut has finally fallen off letting something get loose and causing the problem. Have an assistant turn the wheel back and forth (jack up the car if possible for this) and look for anything steering related looking loose.

[therealturbofan]

i can't see anything from under the car. i suppose it could be a bolt... who knows. i guess i'll try to get it up on a lift this week sometime and see if i can fix it. thanks.

[Hornet11586]

I'm having the same problem with my 1990 900S... its annoying but my steering only clicks when I crank the wheel all the way, like from a stop sign onto a 90 degree corner. Nothing else is effected.... so a joint? I guess I better get this fixed soon, eh?

Think it'll last me till the summer?

[therealturbofan]

no no there's no clicking involved. it makes no strange noises whatsoever. and like i said, the steering actually is difficult that far apart. it's a pain. i was wondering if it hurt the car to drive it...

your problem is definitely a CV joint. that's the telltale sign. get under the car and look at the boots. if one is torn then you'll know for sure it's a joint.

[Hornet11586]

Thanks Turbofan, do you know how much a CV will cost? And if it can wait a few weeks, cuz I just replaced my altenator...

Thanks

[therealturbofan]

hehe heck yes i know how much they cost! everybody says saab parts are so expensive... well you can buy quite a few at your local autozone for pretty darn cheap!! if you wanna buy just one joint, you'll pay like $70 off europarts or whatever. however, autozone sells the COMPLETE AXLE, including both inner and outer joints with boots and everything, ready to slide right in the car. pretty sweet eh? makes it so all you have to do is pull the old assembly out whole, squirt cv grease on the inner joint of the new assembly, and slide it right in. the outer joint is pre-greased and everything. if you have a core (which you would) then you'll pay about $120 all said and done... you get inner and outer joints with the axle. sweet deal, and a lifetime warranty to boot--and they stand behind it. anyway, just go to your local parts house, they'll have the whole thing for cheap.

it should last for a few more weeks no problem, and since you're going to be replacing the whole thing anyway, then don't worry about it. just get to it when you can.

speaking of cv joints... i replaced the left assembly in my car, just found out the right side is bad... great fun... oh well, i'm selling the car anyway, the next owner can do it!!

[Hornet11586]

Thanks again sounds do it yourself... I'll have a mechanic do it. I figured it'd be about 400 or so... maybe 3 weeks, maybe 5

[therealturbofan]

oh man, do it yourself. it's really not that bad. if your car doesn't have a bunch of rust under there it's cake. if it has rust, it's a little tougher. it's really pretty easy to look at it and figure out how to do it. the easiest way for me is to remove the bolts that hold the lower a-arm to the frame (there are 8 large nuts hanging down) and rotate it out of the way (of course after removing everything else, this is when you're to the point of taking the axle out) and then slide the new one in. it's really not all that tough and you'll save TONS.

[therealturbofan]

what state you live in anyway?