Had an Audi TT steering rack fitted to my V6 4Motion today as the original was busted (creeking/clonking).

Audi TT rack....

The original (newish) rack arms were fitted to the TT rack as the TT rack arms were too large/wrong size.

Steering wheel was aligned, car was tracked/aligned and VAGcom run....ESP light comes on and I can feel a grinding or braking feeling when turning corners.  The light doesn't stay on, it simply flickers when turning corners.

I've used the search facility on here but not found much, however Harveysduvet found this....

http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/p/201269/1306869.aspx#1306869

^^^^^this is exactly what's happening to mine!

Can't see a definite resolution to this problem though, so am kinda stuck and getting seriously frustrated

Only thing that has been mentioned is that maybe I should have the Audi TT angle sensor fitted in place of my stand V6 4Motion one - what do you think?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.

Hayley

 Who did the fitting...

First of all what Tie Rods and Track rods have you got fitted?

Secondly How was the steering aligned and tracked and are there equal threads on each side fo the arms?  If you VAGCOM and you are getting a error on the steering angle sensor I am guessing it has not been centered properly.  If the answer is no then problem could lie in your Tie rods again depends what you have fitted...

How sure are you that the rack you have was good?  The grinding noise etc if there is no sign of any metal to metal contact could be the rack?

Would VAGCOM it first to rule out the angle sensor.. 

I don't know what a tie/track rod is

Everything mechanical is standard on the car other than the Pipercross induction kit, R32 dog bone mount and 2 x H&R ARBs.

They took the rack arms (bendy rods off end of steering rack) and put my new standard VW ones on it.

PSI in Newcastle under Lyme have changed this over today and I couldn't tell you what or how they did it but it took them 3hrs.  I'd have to call them tomorrow.

This is a pic of a TIe rod and Track rod.  Long thin pipe is the Tie Rod and the short stubby one is the track rod:-

http://www.performance-cafe.com/images/191419804.jpg

Did PSI do the alignment also?  I would have thought at the very least they would have test drove it?

Hayley, did andy take it for a test drive after fitting? if so did he notice anything??

On slip ring I'm not 100% on how they work but I think it's a magnetic tape and sensors to detect the steering wheel position,  so it might just need the sensors adjusting,  although I may be barking up the wrong tree.

Hope you can get it sorted quickly.

Greg

I'm sure Hayley will be back on here when she gets home - she's just been over here with it to see what vagcom says.

I've had a drive of it and it is definitely the ESP cutting in and braking one of the wheels going round a corner.  It's far easier to provoke it into doing it going round a right hand bend and it doesn't need especially high speed for it to happen.

When driving in a straight line, measuring blocks in the vagcom says the steering angle is 0.0 or very near to it (alllowing for undulations in the road etc) so it appears to be centred correctly.

And yes, the track rod ends and tie arms were swapped from the old rack on to the new one. 

Jon.

Jon I take it vag com didn't through up any abs sensor errors just wondering if they've been dislodged at all?

well from what you said how it reacts it sounds like the slip ring or the steering is out enough to make the system think it is sliding or something, i has this when the tracking was done wrong without clamping the steering wheel in place.

Andy

austin21:

Jon I take it vag com didn't through up any abs sensor errors just wondering if they've been dislodged at all?

Unlikely to be an ABS sensor as the ESP light flashes but the ABS light doesn't come on so is working fine. Something somewhere is making the ESP think the car has lost traction, when it hasn't, but there's no problems under breaking - if it was an ABS sensor causing the ESP to cut in I'd expect it to show up under breaking as well.

Jon.

Dent Reform:

well from what you said how it reacts it sounds like the slip ring or the steering is out enough to make the system think it is sliding or something, i has this when the tracking was done wrong without clamping the steering wheel in place.

Andy

Jon.

harveysduvet:

Dent Reform:

well from what you said how it reacts it sounds like the slip ring or the steering is out enough to make the system think it is sliding or something, i has this when the tracking was done wrong without clamping the steering wheel in place.

Andy

Any idea how far out it has to be to start causing problems?

Jon.

I am not to sure to be honest and when they did my car with  the old mirror conkers they really cocked it up lol

took teh car for a drive and it was awful

ABS kicking in to try and stop the car, ESP light flashing, and just a dog to handle and keep on the road

from what you have described it sounds like the system think the wheels are not straight and the traction control is throwing a fit or something like that.

Are we sure the 4MOTION track rods and ends are the same in length as the S3 ?

i do know the S3 have the track rods turned up the other way as in bolted at the top and not at the bottom like the Golf is, BUT cant see this being a problem as i am using 1.6 track rod ends and rack in TT hubs.

sounds like a system fault with either the ESP or steering angle sensor and as you say it all look dandy on vag-com

you could have a look to see if anything looks out of place or just take it back to them to sort if she feels it is not in order

Andy

BlackMagic20vt:

This is a pic of a TIe rod and Track rod.  Long thin pipe is the Tie Rod and the short stubby one is the track rod:-

http://www.performance-cafe.com/images/191419804.jpg

Did PSI do the alignment also?  I would have thought at the very least they would have test drove it?

 

I don't recognise those but they look a little like the rack arms but missing the rubber boot thing off the end

Sorry, I'm a girl at not at all mechanically minded or technical - I go to Harveysduvet for that normally....he explains things to me in idiot fashion.

I can not fault PSI whatsoever as they've test driven god knows how many times today, only charged me 3hrs labour but yet they've worked on it since 9:40am til gone 6pm.  They've told me to drive with the ESP off as it doesn't really do it then, told me to take it easy, in the meantime they'll do some research and have told me to come back Sat morning to resolve.

austin21:

Hayley, did andy take it for a test drive after fitting? if so did he notice anything??

On slip ring I'm not 100% on how they work but I think it's a magnetic tape and sensors to detect the steering wheel position,  so it might just need the sensors adjusting,  although I may be barking up the wrong tree.

Hope you can get it sorted quickly.

Greg

They test drove it after completing the work - fine.

I drove it home for which is over 30 miles - fine but in the last 5 miles from home that's when it started.

So I called them up and told them what happened, they pretty much diagnosed straight away that the car was getting confused and thinking the wheels were losing traction, so told me to bring it back.

They then reset the steering wheel (centre), VAGcom'd it, tracked/aligned it and test drove it but it  was still doing it but they persisted right on til gone 6pm to no avail.

If the courtesy car had been available they would have sent me home in that, Katy's car was in the garage having the droplinks done, the van being repaired and Andy was using his S4 - so no other option but to drive it home.

I'm meant to be in meetings in Birmingham tomorrow but I don't fancy the risk of stacking it, so have cancelled my meetings.

Right, I've been having a think and a poke around and so far have found that the steering angle sensor in the TT is the same part number as the one in the golf, so I think that's unlikely to be the problem and will be more to do with how the ESP/ABS module is interpretting the signal it gets.

We know the steering angle sensor is reading 0.0 for dead ahead (so this is correct) so here's this mornings theory for why it's kicking in:

For a given turn of the wheel (lets say +90 degrees here) - the TT and Golf steering angle sensors will be sending a message to the ESP/ABS saying 'the steering wheel is turned +90 degrees'.  To save on the maths, lets say with the Golf 3.5 turn rack, that would result in the front wheels turning 30 degrees to the right and so the ESP will be expecting information from it's latteral and longitudinal acceleration sensors consistent with going round a corner at 30 degrees.

However, with the 2.5 turn rack the road wheels will be pointed to an angle signficiantly greater than the 30 degrees (les say 45 degrees) but the steering angle sensor is still saying that the steering wheel is only turned +90 degrees and so the info from the steering angle sensor is saying the car should be turning approximately 30 degrees but the acceleration sensors are giving information consisten with a 45 degree turn and it is this conflict that's causing the ESP to kick in.

Now, this is only a theory, so does it sound plausible? I'm perfectly happy to be told this is guff.

If so though, how would you go about solving it?  My thoughts so far are to recalibrate all the sensors in the ESP system and failing that, investigating the differeces (if any) between the coding on the ABS module on a TT with a 2.5 turn rack.

Thoughts?

Jon.

Hi Jon

hayley has probably by now sent you some information regarding this issue, I totally agree with your diagnosis. The only way to fix it I think is to recalibrate the sensors in vag-com. I have been meaning to do this, but have been lazy and just driving with ESP off.

turkish:

Hi Jon

hayley has probably by now sent you some information regarding this issue, I totally agree with your diagnosis. The only way to fix it I think is to recalibrate the sensors in vag-com. I have been meaning to do this, but have been lazy and just driving with ESP off.

Following on from my question to Andy last night, from reading the ross tech section on the steering angle sensor, it seems to suggest the margin of error when aligning the steering angle sensor is +/- 4.5 degrees.

Jon

I could be wrong but the ABS rings being bent can cause this problem, the sensor loses signal for a split second and thinks something is up and brakes.

When I transplanted the MK4 4motion running gear/loom/abs etc.. into my old Corrado I had the same problem until I straightened a very slightly wonky ABS ring.  The steering rack in that was a Corrado one and the angle sensor was a TT one so had nothing to do with the steering.

Might be very different on this though?

Jay

g60renshaw:

I could be wrong but the ABS rings being bent can cause this problem, the sensor loses signal for a split second and thinks something is up and brakes.

When I transplanted the MK4 4motion running gear/loom/abs etc.. into my old Corrado I had the same problem until I straightened a very slightly wonky ABS ring.  The steering rack in that was a Corrado one and the angle sensor was a TT one so had nothing to do with the steering.

Might be very different on this though?

Jay

Jon.

Well Jon's just left mine and spent all afternoon out in the car on his VAGcom doing various tests and checking figures, changing codes etc but it's no better

I really don't know what to do

I don't know whether to persist and hope it somehow rectifies itself or re-calibrates itself or to simply go back to PSI and insist they refit my original steering rack and put up with the clonking/creeking again but I'm seriously skint and can't keep paying out £130 every week to keep swapping steering racks.

 i would take it back to them & get use of their courtesy car until they have sorted the problem out for you