Lotus Elise Sport 135: She Finally Let Me Down (Steering Track Rod Failure)

Well, after nearly 20 years of ownership, she finally let me down. Something broke that pretty much rendered her undrivable while I was out on an early morning blat through the Berkshire/Buckinghamshire countryside.

I have had this little Lotus for nigh on 20 years and, in that long time of regular usage, she has never broken so badly that I was even at risk of being stuck at the roadside. THe worst failure so far was my head gasket, which was detected so early that I could drive safely from Yeovil to Bristol. But this time was very different: the right-front steering track rod failed and the wheel was left free to move almost as it wanted. For any other car, such a failure would have been terminal because the wheel would move uncontrollably away from the direction of the car's travel. But not this little Lotus, she's unbeatable.

It happened suddenly and not at all violently (thankfully). As I was exiting the M4 at Maidenhead, I steered left into the deserted junction roundabout at inexplicably reduced speed (I don't know why I entered so abnormally slowly), and I felt the steering suddenly go light and vague, and the car slumped lazily into severe understeer. No noise, no drama, no clanging of metal, nothing. Luckily I had a lot of space to understeer and recover, after which the car wobbled violently side to side. It was obvious that the track rod was broken completely and without warning.

As I navigated the roundabout to get out of immediate danger in a lay-by just outside the roundabout, I experimented with a bit more speed to see if I could stabilise the wheel's directional stability. And YES, I could! Above 20mph the wheel tracked the car's direction of travel perfectly well! The suspension castor had enough authority above 20mph to damp all oscillations! I was gobsmacked. So, on this new information, I decided to try and reach my friends at Steve Williams Sports Cars just 2 miles or so down the road in Maidenhead.

Would you believe it, Elise made it! And without any drama or anything. I'm still amazed. I parked up at the back of Steve's building, and emailed Steve about what had happened. Remarkably, he was coming in on that Saturday morning to work on another customer's car, and he would fix Elise if he could. Lo and behold, he diagnosed the broken track rod, had another complete steering rack on the shelf, and fitted it for me the same day. By the afternoon Elise was like new again. Steve and Ben are the absolute best, and the nicest people you could ever meet.

The moral of the story is this: first, the MOT checks are insufficient to find track rod damage under the boots on the rack side of the rod. So, you'd do well to pay attention to your steering, get your wheel alignment checked periodically (more often than annually, that's for sure), and if you feel ANY slack in the steering, open the boots and CHECK the track rod joints. Second, England's roads are in such an awful state you need to take much more care of your suspension than you might have done 10+ years ago. I drive my car sympathetically and am expert at dodging holes and imperfections in the road and STILL my steering broke.

These roads are no longer a bad joke, they are now beyond the point of being properly dangerous rather than a nuisance. We need laws that empower citizens to take councils and the government to court to face the full consequences of uncarworthy roads caused by their negligence - just like they make us pay for unroadworthy cars. My car was always roadworthy, but the roads it drives on are not carworthy.