I dont often write to forums often but have a problem that is a bit confusing. Customer brought in 2005 Explorer with 2 complaints. Complaint 1 was noise upon excelleration and when coasting coming from drivers side wheel. Found defective CV joint, replaced CV and shaft assembly noise is gone. Complaint 2 and this is where it gets somewhat confusing. Customer says at higher speeds vehicle over-steers when changing lanes. When I drove it ob the highway what is happening is when you pull into left lane, steering is very resonsive and acting normally when the steering wheel hiwever returns to center position it over-steers back to the right causing an unstable steering condition. This also happens in the oposite direction when coming back into the right lane and steering wheel returns to center position it has a tendency to over-steer to the left. I hoped that the CV joint was also the culprit for this problem but it was not. I checked all the steering/suspension components and found nothing wrong. Tires are good, brakes are good. I have tried to replicate this issue at low speeds in a parking lot but could not. I am right now leaning towards a power steering pressure issue that may involve the replacement of rack and pinion and/or power steering pump. Anyone else experience this issue? Any suggestions ideas?

 

2005 Explorers have independent rear suspension, right? Have you checked the rear suspension for anything loose? How's the alignment? If this is like some cars with independent rear suspension, all 4 wheels have to be aligned or 3 of the wheels have to be aligned with respect to the one in the rear that doesn't have any adjustment.

For my own education, do these things have speed sensitive steering that adjusts power steering pressure based on speed? Just wondering why you would look to the pump and the rack? Can you tap into the pump pressure and monitor it while driving?

 

MikeMan,

Those are very interesting issues you bring up and monitoring the pressure was what I was considering. There is a procedure for that that i was hoping to gain some knowledge from this forum about that. Anyone that has ever driven these knows how responsive and precise the steering is on these vehicles and was a little taken back at how sloppy it got at the higher speeds. However, in reference to the rear suspension and coincidentally, I did check the rear suspension and something I noticed that got passed me earlier was a tire on the passenger side. The tire is in good shape but, it's different and has more wear on it than the other 3. Also noticed a cracked spring on the passenger side strut assembly. This also got by me because it is not making any noise (go figure). I know from experience that these vehicles do not like it when you mix tires. So, we'll proceed with replacing the rear struts and see what happens but, I'll bet that even more so than the strut, it's the different tire that's causing this issue. I would still like to know for my own head about checking the steering pressure. Thanks for the reply MikeMan.

 

Keep us posted with what you find out.

 

I am curious if you can discover weather the tire was put on as a mismatch? Already different circumference? or was there something wrong with the car that caused the tire to wear differently?

I know the 03 Explorer I bought used had mismatched tires and after replacing them with a matching set, it handles much better and lots of noises disappeared.