Corsa Steering Probs

Hi hope someone can spead some light onto a problem we seemed to of
developed on my GFs corsa 1.2 16v sxi (old shape). Firstly the car was
bought and fully serviced from new at local dealers. Car is about five years
old and average mileage.

About 1 year ago the steering on the corsa decided to play up, easy turn one
way resistance the other, and pulling to one side. Basically it was fecked,
and funnly enough just out of warranty. Dealers looked and said new eps pump
and column,. quoted £700!!....We simply didnt have that cash and neither did
we feel we should pay it for on a "new" car. Eventually vauxhall agreed to
pay 40%...hmmm thanks...but we still didnt have the cash or the will. Anyway
to cut long long story short the stealers looked at it again recently and
first said theres nothing wrong, then said new column is needed. We AGAIN
said we havent the cash and if we did we would be pissed off having to pay
for their manufacuring fault and walked away. 2 days later they phone up
8:30am saying we got your column when can we book you in...??...

They have now done complete U turn and fitted new column
free!........Trouble is it still feels shit not smooth at all. Anyway all
this to simple ask......ARE ALL CORSAs (OLDish models) S POWER STEERING
UNITS SHIT?......IS THIS COMMON FAULT AND IF SO WHAT THE BUGGERY IS CAUSING
IT?...


Ta,,,

(bet you wish you never started reading this one)

 

I had a 93L Corsa SRi (8V unit, with power steering) until a couple of
years ago and never had any problems like what you document. When I got
rid of it I had around 120k miles on it, of which about 100k of those
were *hard* miles!! That car took a lot of abuse but the power steering
never gave any trouble. Strange one.

I now have a 51 Astra 1.8 SRi and that car is to be highly recommended.
Kudos to Vauxhall for getting the handling 'just right' (for a road car
anyway) and putting in an engine with great mid-range pull. Big step up
from the Corsa.

Andrew

 

Aye, well during all this bother i got my mits on a golf gti turbo, lots of
power and grunt with lovely silky smooth steering. I was starting to wonder
if i have just been spoiled by driving the golf all the time so that the
corsa would feel shit even if brand new...