Ford Focus (1998 - 2004) - 00 1.8 Steering making knocking sound

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Sun 17 Jan 2010 15:29
00 1.8 Steering making knocking sound - brodington
Can you help me?

My Focus has recently started making a knocking sound as I turn the wheel. It looks to me (and sounds) like the coil spring turning around bit by bit as the wheels moves.

Its on the drivers side (car also pulls to this side slightly when driving)

Is this common?
Is it dangerous?
What do I need to do to fix it?

Cheers,

Neil
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Sun 17 Jan 2010 16:11
00 1.8 Steering making knocking sound - WorkshopTech
It could be a number of things (always hard to diagnose without seeing/hearing) possibly the first thing to check is for broken spring, which is not uncommon on focus.
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Sun 17 Jan 2010 16:49
00 1.8 Steering making knocking sound - brodington
Is that something that is easy to check visually? If so what am I looking for?

Thanks for your advice.

p.s. Am I safe to drive to work in it tomorrow? 16 miles...
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Sun 17 Jan 2010 16:54
00 1.8 Steering making knocking sound - WorkshopTech
You MAY be able to see it by just looking up into the wheel housing. Ideally jack up and take a look, it may or may not be obvious depending on how much you know about cars. Again, hard to say whether its safe or not, depending where its broken (IF it is a broken spring). If in doubt then get a local independent to take a peek at it, should only take a few mins and if its broken give then the job. Its not difficult, get both sides done.
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