hello, my garage told me that my steering box is broken. I have searched high and low on the internet to find more out about this just so I can have an understanding. But I seem to have no luck finding anything about a steering box for this car in particular, only steering racks and pumps. Does this car have one? It's a freelander 2, 2008 automatic...

No it doesn't. There was an issue on early models where the pump would prematurely fail due to weld splatter in the rack. The bits of weld get ground up by the pump which in turn slowly blocks the the filter in the reservoir, this then restricts the flow of PAS fluid causing heavy steering and noises from the pump.

If you are lucky changing the reservoir and fluid might sort it.

Thank you for your reply. I had a feeling it didn't. Maybe I have to check back with him, incase he meant the steering rack instead. The problem I have been having is heavy steering but very intermittently. So intermittent that when I first took it to the garage they said they couldn't find fault. When this first began, it was just a gap or sharp tug as I turned the steering in a turn or at a round about but then it slowly built up to not being able to physically turn wheel whenever I came to a junction. This is all after I had a new steering pump fitted, I must add. I then noticed that on cold my fluid was below minimum and so I wondered if this was the issue and was advised to top it up and see. With this I actually managed to remove the old fluid from the reservoir and just top up with new which seem to do the trick for about a week but then the issue came back and felt worse than before. So I didn't drive it for almost a month waiting for it to be booked into a garage, to which I had it towed. When they got the car and test drive it they could find nothing wrong with the steering and returned it with no charge. And it was fine for a while but then started to feel the stiffness again when reversing into spaces and also the slight tug every now and again. So sent it back and asked them to flush the system too which he said he did twice. But was only a couple of days before the problem began to show again. At this stage the garage still hadn't felt what I have felt so I took it back yet again and asked them to drive it around as if it was their own car and now they say they can feel the problem and have located it to be an issue with the steering box and they will fix it. Still yet to get my car back though!

Check the filter in the reservoir , preferably replace the reservoir filter complete

This is one thing I keep asking for as have read it many times but there seem to be somewhat a reluctance to do so from my car fixer. Grrrr!

sadiep said:

This is one thing I keep asking for as have read it many times but there seem to be somewhat a reluctance to do so from my car fixer. Grrrr!

Click to expand...

If they won't fix it. Take it to someone who will.

hmm...funny, never thought of that! Great tip :-/ problem is it's a bit hard when you live in a country that is surrounded by robbing, cheating douches that have one sight of a westerner and think they are quids in. Seriously they know every trick in the book to take ya money and as much of it as they can. It's not as easy as you make it sound believe me...

Get them to drain the system and change the reservoir. The filter will be blocked and simply changing the fluid will displace some of the crud for a while. It will then clog the filter again causing the issues you are having.

Also make sure they are using the correct Land Rover fluid, it is dark green, what colour is the fluid in there now?

Ok so not long after this post and insidently just after I went to collect a new reservoir, my car sprung and extensive leak of power steering fluid. It was found to be coming from the steering rack. They tried to fix the seals but were unsuccessful. New steering rack was ordered and replaced as well as the reservoir. Stiff steering is still persisting. So to date, that's the pump, steering rack and reservoir have been replaced. Please what else could this be??? I'm almost at the end now.. could it have anything to do with the brakes as it only happens when the brakes are applied? And at very slow almost stop speeds and at stop. When stopped and break is applied I litterally can't turn the wheel..