Nearside Play in Steering Rack Inner Joint – Cost to Repair?

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If you’ve just had your MOT and you’ve had an advisory or even a fail on “nearside play in steering rack inner joint”, you might be wondering exactly what this means and how much this might cost you to repair. If you’re not experienced with cars, this can be an alarming thing to read – is your steering about to fail? 

Likely this is a minor issue and one about which you shouldn’t worry too much, unless you’re noticing certain symptoms as you’re driving which might indicate that it’s time for steering rack inner joint replacement. If you do need to have the work done, however, it’s very inexpensive for most cars – parts and labour are minimal.

Let’s get into what “nearside play in steering rack inner joints” means and how it affects your car.

What is a nearside steering rack inner joint?

This is probably one of the most confusing aspects of the MOT in the UK. The reason for this is that what the Department for Transport calls this particular part and what everyone else calls it is different. You’ll maybe have heard of “track rods” or “tie rods” – and this is what a steering rack inner or outer joint refers to. They’re the same thing. 

The steering rack connects the steering wheel to the ground wheels. You have the pinion (which is basically like a big gear) which sits on the rack, and when you turn the steering wheel, the rack moves left to right based on how you’ve turned the wheel. The track rods connect the rack to the wheels which is what allows the wheels to turn.

1 – Steering Wheel. 2 – Steering column. 3 – Steering rack and pinion. 4 – Track rods. 5 – Kingpin

There are two parts to track rods, or steering rack joints – you have the inner part which connects to the steering rack, and you have the outer part (often called a track rod end or a tie rod end) which connects to the wheel assembly. All “steering rack inner joint” means is the part of the track rod that connects to the steering rack.

“Nearside” refers to the passenger side of your car in the UK or the driver’s side for a left-hand-drive car – as opposed to offside which refers to the driver’s side on a right-hand-drive car. It just refers to which side is beginning to wear – although in all honesty when you get this on one side, you’re better off just replacing both sides for peace of mind.

This does indicate uneven wear, however – so it might be worth ensuring you get your car aligned when you notice a slight pull to the left when driving.

Is this MOT advisory anything to worry about?

If it’s on your MOT as an advisory, no, to be honest it isn’t really anything to worry about right now. All an advisory is telling you is that something has been noticed that’s starting to wear. It may not be worn out or need replacing yet – it’s just a note that something is beginning to wear and may need replacement by the next MOT – although it may not need replacing for several years yet. 

When an MOT tester writes “nearside play in steering rack inner joint” they’ve noticed that there is play when the car is up in the air and the track rod end is able to be moved. It could be very slight play, or it could be significant play that might lead to failure soon; although if it was dangerous and likely to fail an MOT tester would fail your MOT.

The fact that you might have had this as an advisory indicates that you don’t need to get this replaced just yet. Indeed the play in the steering rack inner joint might only be noticeable when the car is up on the ramp – it might not be noticeable when the car is on the ground or is driving.

However, if you’re hearing clunking or creaking noises when steering, this is probably an indication that you should get these parts replaced soon. If your track rods fail, you won’t have any steering and puts you at risk of an accident. As mentioned, however, if it was dangerous, your car would have failed its MOT – so it’s very likely not something you need to worry about just yet.

How much does a steering rack inner joint cost to replace?

An inner track rod is a really cheap part – if you’re driving a normal car like a Ford Fiesta or Peugeot 208 you’ll likely be spending around £15 per track rod – and if you’re getting the inner replaced you’ll want to do the outer as well, as the garage will need to take the outer one off to be able to replace the inner one.

So you have around £30 in parts. You’re likely looking at around two hours’ labour to do both track rods – at £50 per hour that’s £100 – so £130 in total so far.

You are also going to have to pay for a wheel alignment, seeing as removing the track rod ends will affect the vehicle’s tracking. A garage should be able to reassemble the track rods so that your car is not so far out of alignment that it’s dangerous to drive, but to prevent wear on your tyres you will have to have the car aligned, or “tracked.” This will likely cost you about £30.

Therefore, we’re at a total of £160 in parts, labour and wheel alignment to replace both inner and outer joints of the steering rack on a normal vehicle. If you’ve got something like a McLaren, you’re probably going to spend a little more, but for 90% of cars on the road this figure will be in the ballpark – unless you’re going to a really expensive garage that charges more for labour, or you have the work done at a dealer.

To summarise:

Can I replace inner steering rack joints myself?

Actually, yes you can – and it’s not too difficult a job for anyone with basic car maintenance experience. There are plenty of videos online on how to do this, and you’re likely to find one for your specific vehicle with a bit of searching, but here’s a great one by ChrisFix (and this process is the same for nearly all cars with rack and pinion steering, which is basically all of them.) When you replace the inners, it makes sense to replace the outers as well, and this is what this video will show you.

In terms of cost, take off the £100 labour cost for a total of £60 for wheel alignment and parts.

For a bit more detail, here’s how you replace your steering rack track rods.

Parts you’ll need:

• A socket set – regular hex and sometimes you’ll need torx (check directions for your specific vehicle if unsure)
• Torque wrench
• Socket wrench
• Hammer
• Tie rod iron or extractor
• Copper grease
• New tie rod inner and outer
• New plastic steering rack boot

Check guidance for your specific vehicle as regards to torque settings.

1. Jack the car up at the front and remove the wheels. Make sure you know how to do this safely – never work under a car that is only supported by a jack, and make sure you use axle stands to hold the car up. Make sure the handbrake is on. For extra safety, chock the back wheels, and when you’ve removed the front wheels, slide them under the car so that if your axle stands were to fail, you don’t get pinned under the car. You won’t be working under the car as such to replace track rods, but it’s better to be safe than sorry working under or around cars.
2. Release the holding nut on the track rod end. Don’t unscrew it all the way – just slacken it.
3. Release the holding lug nut on the track rod end (the one connected to the wheel assembly.) Sometimes this will have a little cotter pin in it to stop it from coming out – if so get a pair of needle nose pliers, straighten the pin and remove it.
4. If you don’t have a ball joint puller, take a hammer and hit the track rod end thread to make it come out. Don’t worry about damaging the thread as this will be replaced anyway. If you are planning to re-use it (although I wouldn’t recommend this) then put a block of wood over it and hit the wood to prevent damage.
5. Scribe a mark over the inner and outer tie rod ends. This will help you during the next step.
6. Unscrew the track rod end, counting the number of rotations needed to remove it. Use the mark you scribed as reference. This will help you roughly align the vehicle when you put the new track rod end on. It won’t be exact, and you will still need to get the wheels aligned, but this should make it so that your alignment is not so far out that it’s dangerous to drive.
7. Now, measure the distance between the locking nut and the end of the inner track rod. This is easier with calipers, but you can use a tape measure if that’s all you have. Again, this is necessary to ensure the vehicle is re-aligned as accurately as possible upon reassembly.
8. Remove the locking nut on the inner track rod.
9. Now, the inner track rod has a metal clip at both ends of the plastic boot. You’ll need to get a pair of pliers and remove the one closest to you first.
10. Get a knife and cut the external part of the plastic boot so that it can be removed.
11. Now, remove the internal metal clip and remove the boot.
12. Using a tie rod iron or extractor, you can now extract the inner track rod.
13. To reassemble, do everything in reverse. Take the new tie rod and insert it into the steering rack using your tie rod iron. Insert the internal metal retaining clip, and use it to secure the new plastic boot. Clip on the external metal retaining clip to keep the boot in place.
14. Put the locking nut back into place, ensuring you use the measurement you took in step 7 to gauge how far to screw it on.
15. Now, put the tie rod end on, making sure you do the same number of rotations as it took to remove the old one as you measured in step 6.
16. Reattach the new tie rod end to the wheel assembly. You will need to check the torque settings for your specific vehicle. It is very important to torque this up to ensure it doesn’t work loose with normal driving.
17. Put the wheels back on and let the car down safely.
18. Test drive your car. As long as it tracks roughly straight, you’re safe to take it for a wheel alignment which you MUST do immediately. If your car does not track roughly straight, you’ve likely made a mistake when putting on the track rod ends (possibly you’ve over or under tightened.)

A simple job that shouldn’t really take you much more than an hour per side. However, this does address critical functions of your car’s steering system, so if you’re in any way unsure, ask your local garage like dansautocenter.com to take a look for you. 

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