[EvilChief]

steering rack itself a reco one you would be looking around the 200 to 250 mark.

The replacement itself can be a little bit of pita sometimes, if its a S2 onwards you need to undo the two swaybar D mounts and flip the swaybar out of the way. undoing the pressure lines is sometimes easier when the rack is already dropped from its mounting point. btw i highly recommend pipe spanners for undoing the flare nuts. also add around 1.5l of agri fluid to the shopping bill (please DO NOT use DXIII !!!!)

also start the whole excercise by undoing the tie rod ends (requires a large hammer and dont be scared to use it). do not take the toe rods off until you have the rack out of the car. when it is out of teh car measure the over length of teh rack from tie rod to tie rod. then you can undo the tie rods, keep count on how many turns they have gone on by. then on teh new rack scfrew the tie rods back on as many turns as they have come off, sometimes the amount of turns varys from side to side. the remeasure the overall length from tie rod to tie rod. if its within a millimtere or two, your wheel alignment will be reasonably close, however a wheel alignment is still a MUST!


BTW if your mechanic is gonna replace your rack for $270 id take it, thats a damn good price, but i have a funny feelingit mught just be the [price for teh rack, unless they rebuild them inhouse (which we dont due to time constraints - takes about an hour to do, parts are around $50, but you really need to know what your are doing).