'08 Vue Steering Rack
 

Hey everybody,

I wanted to know if anybody else out there has had problems with the power steering rack in their Vue. My wife's car starting making noise in the steering about a year ago and the dealer replaced the pump and rack. About 6 months later the noise came back and they replaced the rack again. We believe the first replacement was an aftermarket as they said the factory part was backordered and this latest one is a factory part. It is now good as new and nice and quiet.

Has anybody else experienced anything like this? I think this is an excellent car and this is about all that's gone wrong with it.

thanks!

Hmmmmmm ......

Not the first time people have reported that "aftermarket" parts don't seem to operate as well as the OEM stuff. Hopefully, you can locate a GM dealership in/near/around your home town that has technicians with Saturn experience --- I gotta drive almost 70 miles one way to get to mine ......

Luckily the dealer is only about a mile from our house and used to be a Saturn dealer. They are now selling Buick, GMC and Cadillac and obviously servicing all GM cars. I don't think the service itself was the problem, I'm just more interested in finding out if the racks on these cars are a known problem and what to expect down the road. It has about 56K miles on it and the extended warranty covers up to 100K. Just hoping we won't have to pay for a new rack ourselves when the warranty expires.

Not sure how it is in Connecticut, but here in Mississippi, if a car has been repaired under warranty, and the same failure reoccurs, (less than the original time period - mileage since the repair) then GM has to repair it under "lemon law" guidelines

That is what I was hoping. Time will tell I suppose. Hopefully we had a bad original rack, and then a crappy aftermarket one and now we'll be good. I think it's a really well made car otherwise.

what kinda noise was the rack and pump making? My 08 Vue XR makes a sound I've never heard from a PS system -- I'm not sure if it's normal so that's why I ask...

please do tell

Yes many make a scraping noise while turning

Hi,

At first it was a combination of a typical power steering pump whine along with a squeeky sound that sounded like it was coming from the column itself. My best friend is a master technician for BMW and he said the noise was definitely the rack and it travels up through the column so it can be a bit deceiving. It was mostly when turning the wheel at slow speeds and to and from dead center but you could feel it in the wheel a bit as well. It was really annoying to us.

If your car is still under warranty, I would definitely have it replaced as it is a ton better now.

Rack it up to experience.

You guys c-rack me up.