2003 Z71 problems

[CRaSHnBuRN]

Okay, my girlfriend says her chevy is having some problems. She says the steering seems a little harder than normal, and she is getting some vibrations in the steering wheel. She says she had some part of the steering replaced under a recall, and it was causing similar problems at the time. Of course she doesn't remember what the part was, and I simply haven't had the time to even look at it. Anyone have any ideas what it could be? Idler arm or something? The truck only has 25,000 miles on it, so I doubt it anything like a worn out TRE, but I could be wrong.

[DRAGOONRANCH]

Stock tires and rims?

[Jackasic]

is it still under warranty or was 3 year/36K?

[tigweld]

the tre's and idler arms are tiny on these trucks I would suspect those.

[Jackasic]

jack it up, grab hold of the tire, push it side to side. that should tell you where the loose bits are.

[sasquatch]

i had my steering shaft lubed because it was making a clunking sound. they replaced my power steering pump at the same time also. all warrenty work

[CRaSHnBuRN]

out of warranty because of the age, stock tires and wheels.

Pump was really low on fluid, but thats all I've had time to check at them moment. All my tools are back home, so its kinda hard to really tear into it.

[Fredo]

There's a recall on the lower steering shaft between the column and steering box. Clunk is the most common problem. Sometimes they develop slack in them. If she's got a vibration and the mileage is that low, I would look at that first. Power steering pump going bad prematurely? Does the truck sit around idling a ****-ton? Has she ever bashed curbs with it, or has the truck been wrecked? That seems like low mileage to start having problems like that. Next time you look at it, scroll through the dash display until it shows the engine hours. See how many hours it has on it.

[Chadnutz]

Belt slips on my Beretta so the steering is easyhardeasyhard at a pretty high frequency as the belt slips and grabs. That makes it harder to turn into and out of parking spots and "vibrates" the steering wheel.

[Graystroke]

i would bet the first part of fred says. my Dad's clunks every 40k or so and he takes it in to get something lubed in the steering shaft and it goes away

[bcolman]

i would bet the first part of fred says. my Dad's clunks every 40k or so and he takes it in to get something lubed in the steering shaft and it goes away

its just a grease fitting in the stering column, look under the dash and you might be able to see it, my mechanic showed me where it was when we ha similiar problem on my dads 2000 suburban

[Fredo]

Hmm....that must be a first design run. The shaft on my 02 tahoe and the shaft on our 01 suburban don't have grease fittings on them. In the beginning of the recall, GM was replacing the shafts, then they redesigned it a couple times and finally decided that they would just lube the bastard to "fix" the problem. I think part of the problem is the way the clocking spring for the airbag sits at the end of the column. I know on our suburban it seems like the clunk comes more from the clocking spring/lower column bearing than the lower shaft.

[CRaSHnBuRN]

hmm, that may be it. She had something in the steering replaced during a recall, but can't remember what it was. I asked about the normal stuff like idler arm and TREs, and none of that sounded familiar to her, so maybe that is it. As for abnormal wear, yeah she seems to bump curbs a decent amount. She kinda has the "if its in my way I'll go over or around it" mentallity. The truck also seems to have a noticeable lean to the passenger side front.