The steering rack ‘accordians’ and the track-rod end gaitors are made of poor ‘rubber’. Mine had cracked open after 10K miles in 4 years and it is an MOT failure. It has taken me 10 hours to change them - it is a steering rack out job, so even at a dealer it will be very lengthy job and therefore costly. When buying a car it’s a good area to check, even if it does have a new MOT!
Yep mine were shot after 2 years & 15k milesI have heard that its a combination if poor quality rubber and the fact that as the rack is near the rads, due to airflow the rubber gets hot & cold all the time and this leads to failure.Mike