Knocking steering wheel

[Shanjack]

Hello,

I have just bought a second hand RAV4 2008 from a garage and the steering wheel is knocking at low speeds, I have took it back to them twice and both times they have said they can’t find anything wrong with it and what ever is causing the knocking is not dangerous.

Just wondering if anyone else has had this problem and know what is causing the knocking noise and if it is dangerous or not.

It is driving me crazy, even if it isn’t dangerous the noise is very annoying and I can’t enjoy the car until it is fixed! 

Thank you 

[furtula]

Welcome to the forum.

Knocking is due to dried up grease on the shaft. Not an issue, bunch of people like me have it on Auris.

Not a safety issue, and sadly pretty common for Toyotas from that time period.

 

If you search the forum for it, you will find instructions for fixing and, and how other people have done it.

[TonyHSD]

Hi and welcome.

Almost every Toyota has that problem and yes it is not dangerous but it is very annoying indeed. There are a couple of different things that might had gone wrong and produce that knock. Best is to research about other Toyota models like Prius and Auris as they are very popular and many of them suffer the same problems. Things that usually goes wrong are steering wheel column cv joints, gears, bearings, or just lack of lubrications in the column assy ., the telescopic mechanism that allows reach adjustment. In some cases all that needs is tighten some bolts or nut, lubrication or steering wheel column replacement which is very expensive if you go to the dealer. In my opinion Toyota should start recall for that but because it’s not an safety issue we may never see any. 

Regards 

[Shanjack]

All right thank you, my car is under warranty but they won’t replace anything as they can’t see the issue causing the knocking but it’s driving me absolutely crazy and can’t enjoy the drive because of it. Such a shame as everything else is perfect on the car. Toyota will probably be losing customers due to this, I know once I sell this I won’t be getting another one in case I get the same issue 

[bobby boy]

Could be the splines on the universal joint (well known rav problem) where the column goes through the floor. Dismantled mine and put bearing lock on splines, reassembled, cured knocking. Maybe worth a mention to your garage.

[Shanjack]

Thank you, I will mention it to my brother as he’s a mechanic and the garage are just giving me the run around saying it’s not dangerous so they are not fixing it under warranty 

[bobby boy]

Have a look at page 4 of rav4 club guides on this site which covers the problem in greater detail, and shows how to replace the splined intermediate shaft which was causing my problem.

[Shanjack]

Thank you I will do