Are aftermarket steering racks o.k. or stay away???

Hi, I noticed my steering rack has some decent play in it after 221K miles on the car. I've replaced everything up front except the front shocks/springs/steering rack/Driver Side wheel bearing (which is still good).

Is the steering rack a MUST buy OEM thing (Like the Bosch O2 sensor, and MAF are...) that has been gleaned over the many years on this forum, or are their good aftermarket ones? It is expensive, that's why I ask.

I need to do it in a hurry, moving soon and losing my base auto hobby shop that is so close with lifts to make life easy!

Do I need to drop the subframe? This sucks cause I JUST replaced the steering back bushing and didn't notice it during that repair (Did subframe bushing, sway bar bushings, and steering rack bushing (Bushing singular, their is only ONE...I expected two and bought two rack bushings...)

The only real parts that pose issues are the seals and o'rings. The major issues with aftermarket is low quality in this department. Most of them are just remanufactured. The cleaning processes usually involve media blasting and some times it's not completely removed and causes binding or leaks. For the most part its hit or miss but imo it's not worth the hassle of removing and replacing it twice. I opt to just rebuild them with oem seals and o'rings and use my parts washer vs blasting.
It's not terribly difficult to pull them apart and rebuild them. It can be done very cheap. Like 20 to 40 bucks in parts and cleaning supplies. Most of the hassle is the removal and install. As for boots and tie rods I would go with OEM only.
Food for thought.

Goods points Mongler. I know about the reman'd thing, it seems that more and more auto parts are remanufactured. I don't mind the recycling and reusing thing, but they can't take short cuts. I see that Bosch has (presumably) remanufactured racks, which is great! I trust them for aftermarket, they do OEM in many cases for other areas anyways.

I dropped off my car to one of three trustworthy mechanic in town I've used for tires/alignments (thing I don't do). They said the slight play I feel, on both wheels, when rocking the tire in the 9 to 3 o'clock position is normal and the center point of the rack. while I think it is possible, I'm also skeptical. To be fair though, I am HYPERSENSITIVE to any noise/vibration on ANY car I'm in, so it may well be the case.

They said the whole front end it tight (Should be, the only thing I haven't replaced in the last month are struts/springs, DS wheel bearing, and the power steering rack. Everything form subframe down and forward is done (IDParts or ECS for my parts, and OEM when reasonable).

They also said the vibrations, unpleasant road feel is my bad tires. I know bad tires can cause all sorts of issues in terms of road feel. The tires are getting toward the end of their normal service tire (tread wise) and have a little wearing on the inside (ONLY) from before I replaced almost everything up front.

My 221K mile subframe bushings were shot! So maybe he rear subframe bushings are causing the less than stellar handling. I'll know about the tires being the cause or not, cause I'm swapping to snows next week, to get my car ready to ship up north.

Well, the mechanics were right! After dropping the car back off to them to have them put on snow tires (we are moving up north and want to be prepared), the vibrations went away. So the rack "play" I felt WAS normal. My pride takes a hit, but I saved $600 and didn't replace a otherwise good part! I'm glad I waited and didn't impulsively replace the rack.

Vince,

I just had the rack and pinion fail on my Audi TT -> TDI conversion. The car/body has about 240,000 miles on it. The seals failed on the rack on both sides. I purchased a new rack from Atlantic Automotive Enterprise. The new rack "steers" much lighter than the old rack did. By that I mean it takes less effort to turn the wheel in a corner.

This is the first rack and pinion failure I've had in my VW fleet.......

Eric

The rack and pinion on my 2005 beetle started leaking real bad around the seals. Putting in new seals was not an option as the shaft on the passenger side was all rusty and pitted. Boot failure caused moisture to get on the shaft. The replacement rack and pinion i got on ebay for $150 works like it should, but the steering wheel was upside down when I first installed the rack and pinion. I took it back out and compared it to the old one and sure enough the new rack and pinion had been assembled with the steering shaft connection 180 degrees out. Googling showed that this isn't that uncommon for an aftermarket or rebuilt rack and pinion. Solutions were to take off the steering wheel and turn it 180 degrees or modify the shaft on the rack and pinion by cutting a new groove for the pinch bolt. I didn't do either. You can remove the bottom part of the steering wheel shaft and turn the u-joint 180 degrees just by grinding out the little indentations on the bottom of the upper half of the steering wheel shaft. They are all that hold together the upper part of the steering wheel shaft and the lower part of the steering wheel shaft with the u-joint. I did have to break off a little of the plastic above the brake pedal to get enough room to slide the lower portion of the steering wheel shaft off the upper part. Hope this helps if anybody else has the same problem replacing a rack and pinion with a cheap aftermarket or rebuild. My first time on this forum. i hope this post is in the right place.

Replaced mine years ago, had to have it next day. So Autozone it was. Help up for 6 or 7 years, car was totalled (99.5J). If I had the time and could find a good rebuild kit, I'd go that route. If not I'd go ID Parts or some other reputable place, not ebay, Amazon or Alibaba.

When I was searching for a replacement rack for my Audi TT, I found that there are only a couple places that rebuild rack and pinion. You're basically shopping price since most of the places carried the same rebuilt brand racks.

Eric