Range Rover chooses profits over safety by not recalling UK cars after using incorrect bolts in the steering rack.
They did not consider how Aluminum bolts expand and contract over a small temperature range, ultimately causing stress fatigue and breakage.

In 2019 they did a full safety recall in Canada and North America but not UK.

There is enough evidence on the internet to prove that this is a wide spread problem which costs owners over £3000 to repair affecting Range Rover Evoque, Discovery Sport 2012 to 2017 and Range Rover Sport 2015 – 2017 and it appears that people have just accepted Range Rovers diagnosis stating the bolts corrode due to salt water ingress causing corrosion bolt failure, thus establishing an external cause for the problem as opposed to acknowledging it is a negligent design defect which they can be sued and forced to do a recall.

Range Rover appear to have created this smoke screen, either intentionally or based on a few cases were corrosion might have caused the cause, when in fact the main reason is that the aluminum bolts suffer from thermal stress with expansion and contraction which will eventually cause fatigue stress and bolt failure, this happened to my car last month after a 2 day spell of -4c. the bolt sheared by itself overnight. Aluminum will expand and contract over a small temperature range of between -2c to 25c and I estimate a 75mm aluminum bolt will expand 0.04 mm in that range which will eventually cause stress fatigue.

In effect they negligently designed a component that would affect the safety of the car, they were more concerned about a bi-metallic reaction with the steering unit aluminum casing, over tensile strength. When I saw the sheared bolt , even without knowing the history of these failures, I was surprised, and shocked, as to how a small aluminum bolt could have been used.

After 2017 they corrected the design defect and installed coated steel bolts, again the coating is not to stop corrosion from salt water corrosion but to stop a bi-metallic reaction with the aluminum casing and this should have been chosen as the original specification for the steering units!

Sept 2021 Range Rover agreed to a fix on Failure for Evoque and Discovery sports, but not everyone will know about it and RR Sport is not included.
There is now an action group to try and recover expenses for any affected model owners over the last 10 years.

rractiongroup@gmail.com

Owners provide their name and address and contact number.
What was their car reg
Describe how the failure happened, where and when, location and temperature.
Repair costs and days without the car.

When they have enough affected owners they will then establish a class action suit for damages.

I am a Chief Engineer and have experienced various aluminum failures , the above are my own views.

How can you check if you own a model fitted with the wrong bolts ?

If You can get access put a magnet on the bolts if it sticks they are steel.
when changing the bolts you risk shearing them which makes the job more involved.

I just found out Bosch made these units and are fitted on Fords Volvos and Tesla.

So why hasn't RR claimed damages from them and keep their clients happy , or did they buy the smoke screen that corrosion caused the problem, interesting.
Surely RR engineers would have sussed the real cause.

Is there anything that might cause you to have the steering rack failure coming on, like loss of steering or weak steering etc?

No it happens suddenly, with a noise and judders of the steering wheel and then it becomes extremely difficult to turn the wheel at low speeds.

It can happen overnight in low temperatures - 4c the Aluminum bolt suffers from a unbalanced contraction where the threaded part in the bolt in the housing contracts more that the rest of the bolt held by the cover causing it to separate. you get in the car turn on the ignition then you hear the judder from the steering wheel.

or you can be driving and the bolt eventually fails due to stress fatigue.

The bolt in my car was bright metal and had no signs of corrosion.

uRGHHHHHHH!

I've got warranty until July, might get mine booked in to check it over as only got the 5 months left!

Could the bolts be exchanged at a regular service easily? or is it a huge job?

Please excuse my ignorance, I am not really mechanically minded  Rangerover Sport 2016 4.4 sdv8 A/B loire blue.

Yes would like to know the same, if its a case of accessing the steering rack and swapping the bolts out?

access makes it a bit difficult but a lot of garages wont touch them because if they shear the bolts while trying to remove them it escalates the cost and time to fix.

I can't understand why RR will not cover the RR sport, in fact I cant understand why they have dragged this out the recall for all cars because they could have made a claim against Bosch.

I can't believe they accepted the claim its caused by corrosion which is an external cause by salt water when it's a definite negligent design fault using aluminum bolts.

The only thing I can think of its all down to Bosch being the only supply chain for steering racks and any claims and looking for an alternative supplier would ha

ve held up the car production line