Can anyone throw some light on this. I've just bought a 2006 face lift 2.5 Si sport with less than 40,000 miles on the clock. I collected it today and had a 2 hour drive up the A1 going North in all sorts of horrible weather. Well the car ran perfectly, but the steering which was normal at the start of the journey became progressively more "notchy" or sticky as the journey went on. I was under the impression that this problem had been sorted on the face lift cars but mines definitely not right. It seems to stick in the straight ahead position and needs a bit of effort to make steering corrections . Also when for example going round a roundabout it also sticks in whatever position the wheels in. So in effect the steering is a bit "digital" and corrections result in a series of erratic darts from side to side. So please someone tell me what this could be and how do I put it right. It really ruins the driving experience and is quite unpleasant.
Sticky steering -again.
- Thread starter atreyu1
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Mine sometimes does it on long motorway journeys . As far as I can tell it's a lurication distrubution issue on the worm drive , as to totally cure mine until the next long haul . I just pull in for petrol as normal and put the wheels lock to lock 4 or 5 times .. And thats it , back to normal steering again . My normal blatting around locally it never crops up , only when the wheel is in near enough straight on for long periods such as a few hours on the M6 does it happen .
Yes well I was driving for 2 hours with the heater on blowing into the footwells. From what I've been reading this can be heat related, plus the fact that there's a clunking noise coming from the front suspension somewhere. Maybe I should look at the suspension joints first and see what that does. I'll try the car again tomorrow and see if it's still sticky on a short journey.
I've just had a look under the bonnet to see where the steering column universal joints are. They are very close to the exhaust and will be subjected to a fair amount of heat I should imagine. Also mine look very dry so I'll give them a squirt of something and see what that does. Thinking again about worn suspension joints, surely if it was related to that then wouldn't it affect the feel of the steering all the time.
At the beginning of last year I thought my Z had a touch of sticky steering in the straight ahead position only.
Because I had a bad back at the time I took it to a member on here, Andyfanshawe in chesterfield to have the ring adjusted.
He said rather than adjust the ring he'd first like to try resetting the steering angle sensor with his computer .
When I drove home I thought he'd ruined my car and thoughts of £2:5k for a new steering rack were going through my brain.
Having parked the car up for a couple of days thinking it was a write off
the next time I drove it it was cured perfect and has been ever since. 
Because I had a bad back at the time I took it to a member on here, Andyfanshawe in chesterfield to have the ring adjusted.
He said rather than adjust the ring he'd first like to try resetting the steering angle sensor with his computer .
When I drove home I thought he'd ruined my car and thoughts of £2:5k for a new steering rack were going through my brain.
Having parked the car up for a couple of days thinking it was a write off
the next time I drove it it was cured perfect and has been ever since. atreyu1 said:
Nothing to do with the under bonnet area. The problem is caused when the gearset on the electric motor gets too warm.. It's an easy 10 min adjustment to fix permanently.
Mike
I agree with you now that I understand more about how the system works. I knew that the steering was assisted by a servo motor and I was thinking on my drive home yesterday that it felt notchy like a gear too deeply meshed. Hopefully that's what it is, the factory settings being slightly too far in mesh. Although not enough to affect things until the warmth from the motor or heater causes expansion and then it becomes too deeply meshed and it becomes notchy.
As above you have a facelift car so the ECU should be OK I had the sticky steering in my 04 so had the rack changed by BMW just had to pay £200 labour as I was a month over used warranty.
A way to check if it is the ECU is go for the same drive but do not put the heaters on that's how I knew what mine was.
A way to check if it is the ECU is go for the same drive but do not put the heaters on that's how I knew what mine was.
