hard steering

Originally Posted by chirojoe

next step is a rack

In the bestlinks thread, I just did a browser find (control f) for "steering rack" and only found this ... hope it helps:
- Steering Rack replacement (528i/no pics)

Thanks BB. Alot of helpful info there. Maybe I can talk the mechanic into letting me in on the work beings that he misdiagnosised the problem.

I had similar symptoms, but the effort wasn't consistant enough that I just lived with this intermittent issue until one left turn too many and I heard a load bam/bang under the hood and all steering assist disappeared...ran 3 or 4 lights trying to keep the engine from boiling, not realizing that the serpentine belt was back at the bam/bang spot on the pavement.

Needless to say, I shut the car down when I knew I could coast into Harmony Motorworks...needle never did peg, but it was climbing fast. One power steering pump later, I was cruzin'...I have no idea if I did a fluid change when the prob first reared its ugly head would have prevented this, but @ 90k I guess I got-off easy.