Steering Creak/knock

[anchorman]

As we have discussed several times lately, the steering noise on my old red 4.3 was cured with plastic washers. To help searching for this in future I have posted it as a seperate topic.

Bumper - Front spring T48331-42050 - 2 - £7.78 each

Plate (plastic washer) T48334-42010 - 2 - £0.40 each

As you can see the parts are very cheap but to fit them each MacPherson strut has to be stripped and in line with Toyota procedure the steering re-aligned. The total bill for labour was £122.63 but that was an internal price for warranty and it was in October 2008. If you have it done at a Toyota Dealer I would expect it to be more like £150+VAT.

Maybe Kingo could get a more up to date price for parts and labour?

If you do this yourself make sure you are equipped with 2 pairs of spring compressors or hire a heavy duty set from a tool hire centre.

You can see the location of the bumper in this diagram and the washer goes on top as far as I know. Again, maybe I can get further info if anyone wants a go at it.

spring parts.pdf

[bothwell_buyer]

I've taken off the front struts on my 1994 RAV and its a fairly straight forward task. Just as ancs said, spring clamps and a little bit of patience and the whole lot comes out nicley. I renewed the spring seats as well as the shocks, but then the car is a bit older.

After this, I got the whole suspension aligned by laser - and it does make a difference.