Current Model Tie Rods - just a little bit wet

[GregSale]

Something to check out on current models - my 2007 Spider recently developed a kind of tracking, like it had a bit of toe out...except every now and then it would feel a bit like one of the wheels had come lose. The car at ony been serviced at the house of Z a few thousand K's earlier (see my earlier post about them changing rotors without my permission) so I thought it was my imagination, or the need for a wheel alignment.
Took it to a very reputable guy for a W/A and we found that once up on the rotating plate on the W/A machine, and the steering wheel was locked, it had  about +/- 25mm front to rear play in the drivers side wheel, and slightly less on the passengers. Now remember this car is 65,000km old, so not ancient - he checked the rubber boots on the tie rods - no damage so we decided to remove the boots and poor bugger copped about 500ml of dirty disgusting water on him - same on the other side. This had caused the tie rod balls to rust out causing the play - I was lucky it didn't let go all together as it could have easily speared me into oncoming traffic

The car has never been driven in deep water, along the Murray river or sat out-back a grampa's house for a spell.

so now its new rack and tie rod time  - how did it know it came out of warranty recently

As we dont know how it (the water) got there - I thought I thought I'd post it in case anyone else has a similar vague kind of feeling that was not always there....GET IT CHECKED - I will post a video as soon as I figure out how to get said video off my blackberry and onto my computer without the cable (which I have lost )

[colcol]

Yes, Yes, Yes!, someone else has had the same problem too, the power steering tends to mask problems in the steering, this happened about 24 years ago to my brothers Alfasud, the steering rack became rattly when it was only about 4 years old, and we pulled it apart and it was full of water, but no noticable leaks anywhere, but it was beond repair, so we found a 33 that had only done 2oo kilos before being hit by a truck, so we purchased a brand 'new' rack, then about 7 years ago i noticed the Alfasud was hard to place through a corner without little corrections being made all the time, so i jacked up the front and the steering rack was seized up, you could hardly turn the wheels with them off the ground, so i pulled the rack out, and it wasn't too far gone, but full of water with no obvious leaks, so i managed to rebuild it, then with far too much time on my hands, i convinced myself that my 33 steering rack was on the way out, so i pulled it out and it was perfect with no water leaks, go figure, moral here is keep an eye on any tears in the rubber bellows on your rack, and if something does't feel right, get it checked as it will most likely be worst than what you thought, on ALL Alfa models, Colin.