Following on from the earlier discussion about that tragic accident in Italy
and the possible technical failures that could have caused it.

I can confirm first hand that when the steering breaks the vehicle returns to
the straight on position as long as it is moving forwards.

I reversed out of a parking space earlier on to the road and started to go
forward when there was a snap noise and the steering wheel was just going
round without doing anything, I was doing about 25ish mph down a very steep
Cornish hill. the car straightened out by its self, luckily I didn't hit
anyone or anything, bit scarey though.

The track rod end had failed at the steering drop arm and the rod was
scraping the road, I pushed it back into place and secured it with a cable
tie to get me the few hundred yards to home.

Now comes the hour or so groveling in the road with a club hammer.

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

"nik.morgan" talktalk.net> wrote in message
news:0001HW.C4E2CA2A020DD76CF02845B0@free.teranews.com...

nik.morgan talktalk.net> gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

If the track rod fails, yes, it will do - the caster in the geometry will
ensure that.

But if the upper or lower arm or balljoint broke, all bets would most
definitely be off.

In article <0001HW.C4E2CA2A020DD76CF02845B0@free.teranews.com>,
nik.morgan says...

Unless it's a Volvo FM cabbed vehicle where the steering breakage can
be the UJ in the column seizing.

On Sep 2, 10:52 am, Adrian gmail.com> wrote:

nik.morgan wrote:

Things could get a bit hairy at higher speeds though. Years back I had a van
on a rigid bar tow that snapped a track rod which resulted in the van
trying to go anywhere but straight until I got the speed down. Best I could
figure as a reason was wheel shimmy on the side that broke the track rod;
by the time I'd stopped that wheel had toed out to the steering lock stop
and left rubber on the road.