Really thinking about spending the money to replace my steering rack in my 06. The Dealer only sells rebuilt racks. Anybody know if these rebuilt use the latest improvements if anyway to tell. Have read here that GM changed the bushings to bearings and tightened up the manufacturing tolerance pinion gear. Just want to make sure if I do the replacement I get the improved design not some resealed original sloppy rack that was sent back in as a core. Thanks

 

Just curious.....why are you replacing the steering rack? Obvious damage or you just don't like the steering feel?

 

The steering has a dead spot on center just always seem to be counter steering. This is a base 3lt vert. with 18000 miles I bought it with 13000. Tried everything I could think of. Three alignments in the last year, new tires, new Bilstein hd shocks and installed z51 bars. Nothing has changed the vague steering. last resort finding the improved steering rack for the 05-07. Really a nice car runs great just the steering?

 

check "Turn One" a vendor on this forum for a remanufactured rack.horror story on here last week where they had replaced the rack with G.M. reman 11 times and still no good.

 

I'm curious about your steering issue since I have a 2007 3LT Convertible with Z51 (a pace car) that also has 18,000 miles that had 14,000 when we got it in 2016. The only steering issue I have is the steering effort since the only time I'm aware that it has power steering is when I'm moving slow or parking. Doing some spirited driving on twisty turning roads provides quite a workout.

The previous owner of our car was my brother in-law and I heard many accounts of how he hated how the car seemed to wander and he was constantly having to correct the steering as the car wouldn't hold a straight line. The car now tracks straight and feels stable and confident even at speed since so far I've let it stretch its legs and took it up to 140.

The year before we got the car my brother in-law bought new tires and had the tire store do an alignment and it improved a lot but still wasn't perfect so he took it to a GM dealer and had them do an alignment. I compared the alignment setting reports from the tire store and from the dealer. The tire store changed several settings from what they were and the GM dealer changed them even more but after the dealer alignment it was perfect.

I don't know what the Pfadt street settings that everyone recommends are but they must be darn close to what the dealer set them to since it handles really well. The tires that my brother in-law put on the car were Michelin Pilot Super Sport ZP Run Flats.

 

Funny we have almost the same car and mileage. The pace cars are very nice. Heavy steering does not bother me at all. My problem is just as your brother in law described wandering and always adding correcting inputs. Let me ask if you drive into a gradual turn can you kind of set a steering angle and just drive thru the turn? In my car I start the turn counter steer add steering and so on. If I could get this thing to track and loose the drifting with just another set of new tires and a alignment would be one happy camper. From your post think will call the dealer and set up another alignment using the PFADT settings. Thank you much for your note.

 

It follows the angle I set when entering a curve and doesn't vary from the track in a normal curve only requires tweaking if the arc of the curve gets tighter once in it.

 

No way will mine do that. I added padded door armrests because was worrying about breaking the door panel with my left elbow due to the amount of steering inputs. Its really helps to get info from other owners. This is a beautiful car and crystal smooth power no other problems other than a micro switch in the folding top that lost the little spring arm. Have my fingers crossed I can get it worked out. Thanks

 

C6 factory alignment specs call for a neg camber so car's ready to track.
This results in premature inner tire wear PO'g many owners using their C6 strictly for cruising.
Pfadt 'Street Spec' corrects neg (inward) camber nearer to zero -- more straight up/down = more even tire wear.

Just want to mention the two specs are quite different while neither really has any noticeable effect on 'handling'.

 

My camber settings now last alignment -0.6 left, -0.6 right, toe.06 left and toe.05 right. Are you saying that having the alignment changed will not effect steering feel? Thanks.

 

I'm hoping this information helps you so I've dug into my filing cabinet and pulled all of the documentation that I could find regarding the previous wandering problem with our Vette. I compared the alignment reports from the tire store that installed the new Michelin PSS ZP tires and compared it to the after alignment done by the GM dealer. As I said before the problem was vastly improved with the new tires and alignment but my brother in-law felt that it could still be better so took it to his GM dealer.

What surprised me was that the after alignment specs from the tire store didn't match up with the before specs from the GM dealer and had a eye opening variance when they should have been the same or at least close.

The specs that the car left the GM dealer with and that fixed the wandering problem was:

Caster Left Front 7.7 degrees
Right Front 8.1 degrees

Camber Left Front -0.5 degrees
Right Front -0.7 degrees

Toe Left Front 0.0"
Right Front - 1/32"
Total - 1/32"

Camber Left Rear -0.4 degrees
Right Rear -0.3 degrees

Toe Left Rear 0"
Toe Right Rear - 1/32"
Total Toe rear - 1/32"

Thrust angle 0.0 degrees

The biggest changes that I saw in the variance between before and after were Left and Right front caster from 8.6 and 8.3 to final 7.7 and 8.1 and Toe total from 3/32" to 1/32" the Right toe was a whopping 5/32" initial.

The rear toe also went from 5/32" to - 1/32" a mind boggling variation.

This just proves you don't always get what you pay for since the 2 alignments were done 10 days apart one at a reputable tire store the other at the GM dealer. Nothing happened to the car in the way of road hazards between the alignments.

Considering the poor reputation that the Goodyear Eagle F1 Super Car tires had to begin with it already made a very noticeable difference by changing to the Michelins but the final cure came with a proper alignment.

 

Made appointment in the AM to have alignment gone thru. This is with a different shop that specializes in alignments. Good you had the perseverance to go and have the GM dealer double check the alignment. Will report back what I find out tomorrow. Thank you.

 

It was the alignment. Guess the fourth time is the charm. The shop found the rear toe at left .43, and right toe at .24. They set the alignment up using Pfadts street specs using 0 toe front and back. Pleasure to finally be able to change lanes with out that counter steer wandering feel. Thinking about other people with these cars that have had bad alignments not knowing how they should track. Thanks again Icecap and this forum for the help.