I’ve driven a lot of cars in my time as an auto journalist, but the lowly BMW E30-generation 3 Series is still among my favorites. Its torquey inline-six, timeless design, and light weight combine to create a rear-wheel-driven bundle of joy that’s tough to find anywhere else.
A lot of what makes the E30 great are its touch points. The things you interact with when you drive the car. The pedals are perfectly spaced for heel-toeing, and the shifter is slick and direct, without being too tough to use (gates on the five-speed Getrag 265 are legitimately impossible to miss, provided your shifter bushings aren’t falling to pieces). Then there’s the steering.
Good steering is tough to define, but you know it when you feel it. The E30 has great steering. Whether we’re talking about the hydraulically assisted racks sold in America or the manual steering setup sold on some E30s in the rest of the world, you’ll be hard-pressed to find something this level of linearity and feeling without spending a ton of money on an exotic from the same era. So why are some people chucking the stock setup for an aftermarket, electrically assisted steering system?
Electric Power Steering Is More Popular Than You Think
I’ve been browsing forums and Facebook Groups for years, and every once in a while, someone brings up the topic of an electric power steering conversion kit sold by a company called EZ Electric Power Steering. Turns out the Netherlands-based company has been building conversion kits for all sorts of vintage cars since 2006. So I spoke to one of the founders to learn more.
Ruud Jong and his partner, Roger Reijngoud, founded the company after recognizing the demand for straightforward, reversible conversion kits on classics that never came with power steering in the first place. “We started with Volvos and Jaguars,” Jong told me over the phone.
The company’s offerings have grown considerably in the last 19 years. EZ Power Steering now sells conversion kits for around 350 different models, and sells between 2,500 and 3,000 kits per year. Jong told me the company started making kits for BMW 2002s in 2010, before the first requests for E30s began coming in 2015.
Back in 2012, Harry Metcalfe of Evo Magazine and YouTube fame criticized his Countach’s “ridiculously heavy” unassisted steering as “draining to live with” in an article written for the mag in 2012. So he took it to EZ to a conversion, describing the results in the most cheerfully British way imaginable:
Having lived with the system for a couple of months now, I’m chuffed to bits with it. Not only has it made parking easier, but I can push the chassis that bit harder too, because the weight of the steering is no longer intimidating.
[…]
The biggest difference of all is that I now find myself driving the Lamborghini even more. Whether this is a good thing is debatable, as the petrol bill is proving horrific. Still, as the saying goes, you only live once. And after all, the Countach is one hell of a way to travel…
Purists may recoil at Harry’s decision, but I get it. If you’ve ever driven a sports car with huge front tires and no power steering, it’s a huge pain in the ass to maneuver, especially at low speeds. And, as Metcalfe points out, it’s a lot tougher to find the limit when you have to focus all your efforts on turning the wheel.
“In Europe, a lot of these cars have manual steering racks,” Jong tells me. “And for some people, they want to have a bit of comfort in the car, and they choose the electric power steering.”
It’s not just easier behind the wheel. As BMW E30s age, the original power steering systems start to go bad. Seals fail, hoses crack, belts snap, and pumps wear out. The system itself is as straightforward as any hydraulic power setup, but replacement parts are getting harder to find every day.
I once owned a 1991 318i sedan, and while I loved it, I didn’t love the manual steering conversion done by the previous owner. It felt great when I was on the move, but street-parking in New York City, where I live, was annoying as hell. I considered adding the power steering back in, but I couldn’t find all of the parts I needed without having to spend an insane amount of money. One of these conversion kits would’ve made my life a lot easier.
The Conversion Is Also Simple
Going by videos online, the kit looks relatively easy to install (at least into E30s). The genius of EZ’s conversions is that most of them (60 percent of those offered) come with a new steering column that replaces the one in the car. The new column has an electric motor attached to it, which powers the steering via a worm gear. The other 40 percent require the buyer to send in their original column for the conversion. In either case, the motor is hidden under the dashboard or above the driver’s legs, giving little indication that anything’s been modified. And because the conversion retains the car’s stock steering rack, the steering ratio and all of the tie-rod geometry remain the same.
The kit runs on 12-volt power, and it’s a bolt-in for most cars. That means it’s totally reversible. You don’t have to worry about cutting up your precious classic just for a bit of comfort at low speeds, and when you go to sell your car, you can remove everything and reinstall the factory steering column, like nothing ever happened.
“It’s also adjustable,” says Jong. “A hydraulic system is not adjustable.” Each conversion kit is available with a knob that the driver can spin to adjust the level of assistance required, to the point of being able to switch it off altogether. That means you can flip it to maximum assistance for parallel parking, then flip it off to reclaim the purity of a manual steering rack. In theory, it’s the best of both worlds. If you don’t like how electric power steering feels, you can just turn it off. This is how I imagine most people use these setups, and certainly how I would.
There are a few other upsides, too, for cars like the E30. Because there’s no power steering pump belt to spin, you actually free up a bit of power from the engine. Deleting the pump, the fluid, and all of the hoses saves you a bit of weight on the nose. Sure, you add back a bit of that weight with the e-motor and some wiring, but that mass is farther back in the car (not like most people would be able to feel a few pounds here or there, but for internet bragging rights, it’s worth mentioning).
EZ’s conversion kit for the E30 is priced from €1,550 (just over $1,800 at current exchange rates) before taxes and import fees. Considering I’ve purchased whole-ass, running, driving E30s for around that price in the past, it’s not exactly a cheap upgrade, at least from my perspective. But knowing what I know now, I’ll definitely be considering something like this next time I buy an E30 (or any other old car with heavy steering).
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
I’m not sold, at all. The reason, almost the only reason, why most electric power steering systems result in dead steering is because the electric motor adds considerable rotating mass to the steering column and it acts as a mass damper, smoothing out quick movements and small vibrations. You know, the quick movements and small vibrations that make for good steering.
I see no reason why this system would have steering feel any less garbage than any other EPS system, and that’s a deal breaker in a classic BMW or Lamborghini. The dial to adjust the steering assist is a great idea, but turning off the motor doesn’t make that rotating mass magically go away. When you turn the motor off, you’re going to end up with steering that’s heavy AND dead.
I’m definitely biased, because I mainly daily and Accord with deleted power steering and actually quite prefer it to my other Accord with functioning power steering. So I think adding power steering is kind of a silly exercise in a light car anyways.
My 1st gen Honda Insight had an electrically assisted power steering system and it was in no way “garbage” nor was there any sense of “considerable rotating mass” or “dead steering” – and that was technology now nearly 30 years old. Given that, and the considerable advances made in technology, I’d be willing to install this system into anything.
I have also heard that Insight EPS wasn’t too bad, although contemporary S2000 power steering is supposed to be the worst part of the whole car. Considering an Insight doesn’t even weigh 1800lb and doesn’t particularly need power steering in the first place, I am guessing that the motor is quite small and adds minimal rotating mass. It makes sense that it wouldn’t be a big deal.
Yes, electric power steering has likely gotten better in the last 30 years, but when’s the last time you heard of a newer car that only weighed 1800lb? Newer EPS systems are designed for cars 3x the weight that need 3x the power assist, with a motor 3x bigger. There’s no getting around the fact that a more powerful power steering system needs a bigger motor and will have a greater impact on the steering damping.
Considering that this aftermarket EPS conversion is designed for a number of relatively small and light classics, maybe they were able to keep the weight down and it’s not that bad. But I don’t know if they use the same motor for a tiny BMW 2002 and a bigger car.
I did just notice this detail: “The new column has an electric motor attached to it, which powers the steering via a worm gear.” A worm gear has a ton of friction when backdriven(say, by a bump in the road) to the point that most worm gears actually lock solid when backdriven. This bodes ill for the responsiveness of the steering, or even its function when the motor is turned off(or loses power for some other reason). Idk, I’d have to try it to be sure.
I’d consider this to make track days a bit less fatiguing. The only reason I went with a de-powered rack in the 944 is because the hydraulic systems start leaking as soon as you’ve re-sealed them and they’re just a pain to deal with, which is unfortunate because the steering feel is very good otherwise. The car doesn’t really need it for regular street driving, but grippy tires and tight circuits just get exhausting.
Always been curious about the EPAS swaps, primarily for my ’86 Eff One Fitty, to both clean up the engine bay and to get rid of that classic ford PS whine that i do not prefer. I am also EPAS curious for my v70 restoration, which will also clean up the engine bay significantly, but also tie in the possibility of perhaps maybe potentially getting a tighter turning radius with the addition of a different rack that just pulls the tie rods just a liiiitle bit further? boat like turning radii while manageable arent much fun. Plus, when you are sniffing 300k miles like my cars, those racks and everything associated with them are pretty tired, and everything has to come out anyways, so…perhaps an excuse for a fun sub-project to tackle!
Anyone know of an aftermarket rack for a fwd vovo? i have a sneaking suspicion ill have to fab up a few items to get mounting and alignment correct
Nitpick- 5 speed e30s with a 6 cylinder got the Getrag G260, 4 cylinder e30s got the G240.
Getrag G265 came in a few other BMWs of the era, but most notably the e30 M3
Otherwise, I think this EPS is probably an option geared for engine swap cars with deep pockets. The p/s in my 4 cylinder e30 is still working beautifully, and even with p/s deleted, e30s are a riot to drive. purple tag e46 racks bring the lock to lock from 3.7 down to like 2.4 and cost SIGNIFICANTLY less than $1800 all in, but to each their own. I dont see the benefit myself though
Would definitely love to drive an e30 with an EPS retrofit for comparison’s sake though
Harry Metcalfe has had his Countach reverted back to manual steering in the last few years. There’s a video on his YouTube channel about why.
The best sports car manufacturers in the world have at times whiffed pretty badly on OEM hydraulic power steering, nevermind when companies started switching to electronic racks. There was a solid ten year period where Corvettes having bland/numb steering feel was the major thing against them as a performance car over a Boxster S or the like.
I’d have to be specifically convinced that adding what is essentially an off the shelf electrical power steering rack to a car particularly known for its driving feel like an E30 wouldn’t significantly screw it up.
When I got my drivers license, on my 16th birthday, I might add… we had two vehicles I could drive. A 1965 Olds 88 and a 53 Dodge pickup truck that someone had dropped a 318 V8 and a three-speed automatic into. Oh and put on really wide Goodyear Polyglas tires. And no power steering. Parallel parking was quite the pectoral workout.
I’d love these for my own vehicles. The steering gearbox in my truck is incredibly sloppy.
And an electric motor on the column would make that worse if anything. Your hydraulic power steering acts directly on the pitman arm, bypassing the slop. An electric motor turning the shaft has to work through the slop of the box.
I didn’t know this existed. I might have to get one for Mom’s 2002.
The adjustable switch really makes this sound worthwhile in the right application.
I recall that there were some folks who replaced the recirculating ball steering in the first-generation RX-7 with rack-and-pinion steering from some other car… I want to say a VW Rabbit/Golf? I only just remember it was from a totally different brand.
I am kind of surprised the EPS from the Mazda RX-8 or Honda S2000 didn’t get turned into conversions for some unassisted steering systems a while ago. I still think a great hydraulic rack feels better than a great EPS rack; I particularly liked the speed-sensitive system in the second-generation RX-7, but some variants of that car got RPM-sensitive steering instead. Also, I had to resolder the steering computer every year or so when it would default to the low-speed, high assistance setting while rolling.
I can confirm the speed sensitive hydraulic assisted steering in the FC is pretty dang good. I have a 1991 Turbo that has it and I love it. People always ditch the power steering out of some thought they are going to regain a bunch of power and save weight, but now that I am in my 40s, I realize the genius of that system. It truly had very little assist at speed and felt great. But then when you need to park, you can move the steering wheel with a finger.
Yeah I think it basically was on-off at about 10mph. Not sure there was any assist at all at speed.
The recirculating ball steering in my ’85 RX7 GSL-S was a let-down with a small numb spot on center no matter what adjustments were made. I’ve looked for this mythical VW rack and pinion conversion kit and never found one. I’ll need one before I ever get another 1st gen RX7.
Yeah people would tighten a nut on it but you couldn’t really get the slop out completely.
I’m not sure if there was a kit or people had to fabricate to make it work.
I wonder whether a Miata rack would have worked. The original Miata shared more than you’d think with the old GLC, which was based in turn off the RX-3/808/Familia. Mazda built the Miata to a price point close to $10k, and actually made pretty amazing profit margins when it ended up being in great demand at the $13,800 launch point and still sold really well when increased to over $17,000 within a few years. Anecdotally, I’ve heard margins on the Miata basically kept Mazda afloat through the 90s.
For a few years before the pandemic one of the tractors I used for haymaking was a Massey Ferguson MF35 Deluxe. The “Deluxe” part was power steering, which didn’t work more often than it did. The factory pump couldn’t generate enough pressure to turn the wheels if stopped, and low speed maneuvers were a headache. At the time there was a Turkish company that sold a kit very similar to these for the MF35, which deleted all the factory PS crap, and substituted electric power steering. I contacted them, never received a reply, and then decided to sell the tractor because it wasn’t worth battling the steering anymore. I still think a conversion like this would be amazing to improve the steering (both power- and non-power-) on old farm
Equipment.
Great product! There are a good number of American trucks that really need this.
Ha, I went the opposite way and deleted the power steering on my E30 race car and swapped in a quicker ratio E36 rack with the hydraulic circuit blocked off. It spends very little time at low speeds.
But yeah, electric power steering is a great addition to a lot of older vehicles and if I were building an older car for the street today I’d add it.
My competition MX5 had the PAS rack with the PAS deleted, it had great steering (and my other car at the time was an Elise, so I had a good benchmark).
I’m not sold. There’s SO much more that goes into tuning electric power assist steering than “level of assist”. Well-tuned EPAS comes with lots of benefits, but it is the bane of driving enthusiasts in modern cars. The stretch goals of EPAS, from a feel perspective, are well below what hydraulic steering can provide.
I’ve done a lot of OEM EPAS tuning along with calibrators, hence my comments above. I raced a SpecE30 for more than a decade with no steering assist at all. I’ve also driven an E30 with EPAS, which I wrote about for this site. The EPAS was the absolute worst thing about the car, which is otherwise amazing:
https://www.theautopian.com/i-developed-a-suspension-for-a-peruvian-race-team-then-they-invited-me-to-help-them-race-at-the-countrys-only-track/
Manual rack, mid 20s ratio, steering wheel same diameter as the road wheels is Step 1 in “how to fix a car’s handling”
in case of Countach I get it, in case of E30, not so much. I would keep original PS as long as I can
Does it feel like a video game wheel?
I wouldn’t mind upgrading the steering on my 89 firebird is is so sloppy compared to my Polestar or the fiances TourX hell I think my 92 d250 steering feels tighter hah
I’ve got a 1963 Travelall with manual steering. Driving it on the road is fine, but trying to move it in a parking lot is like trying to wrestle a gorilla. A friend of mine put electric power steering in his manual 1967 Scout and it makes a huge amount of difference. The trick is to find a certain list of cars in a certain range of years with power steering—ones that have a controller box that doesn’t care what speed the car is going and provides the same amount of steering assist at all times. This is, from what I understand, a popular swap on domestic antiques—he just did this for a friend’s 1967 Mustang.
I was so impressed with the difference, I went hunting and found a junkyard unit of my own as well as a spare manual column for my truck. Installing it will be one of my winter projects.
PS: I think I paid $60 for the steering unit and $50 for the column. That’s a hell of a lot better than €1,550…
This is what I thought the article was going to be about when I saw the headline! If registration laws weren’t so strict I would have done this to my old car already, it seems a no-brainer for the price and is perfectly in line with the hot-rodder ethos.
Where are you not legally allowed to make your steering better?
In many states of Australia, modification of steering systems (or many mechanical systems) with fabricated parts outside of stock specification requires an engineer to inspect and sign off on the modification as being appropriate and safe:
https://www.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-02/RMS-13.464-Light-vehicle-modifications-Vehicle-Standards-Information-No-6-November-2013.pdf
Oh wow, although looking at the exceptions maybe the company could make sure it falls under the aftermarket replacement. Dang that is exceptionally vague.
I’ve seen a number of people using these toyota parts to build their own. Seems like a pretty great solution to me. I’ve done tons of driving in 80s Nissan 720 trucks on 31s with no power steering. Parking is miserable for sure.
There is not a single thing I value more in a driver’s car than steering feel. Putting garbage electric assist on anything that had great steering feel is repulsive, but makes sense for cars that had poor feel in the first place, especially if it allows a quicker rack in the cases where the manual rack version was a slow rack to make up for the otherwise high effort. I’ve had 4 manual steering cars, one of which had near the best feel of any car I’ve driven (the best had a hydraulic rack) and it was never a big deal even with a smaller steering wheel as they had
skinnyreasonable width tires.Electric power steering isn’t inherently bad. At this point, I would say that light numb electric steering is an intentional design choice just like light numb hydraulic steering was. The trouble is the average punter *doesn’t* want to feel anything through the steering.
But overall, I very much agree with you. Doubly so when it comes to vehicles with very heavy, but very low geared steering originally. Like some of the buses I drove back in the day. And those are vehicles where I would swap electric for hydraulic in a heartbeat, because having the pump 40ft from the rack is not exactly ideal in any way.
I have a GR86 and people talk about it having great steering, so I have to take it that it’s about the best EPAS can get and I have to say that it’s not great, it just seems good in comparison to the modern cars people are used to (though great steering feel has never been a really common attribute). To qualify this a bit, as I stated, steering feel is the #1 determiner of what makes a driver’s car to me. I’ll take a slow, ugly shitbox like my ’83 Subaru GL with great steering feel (in no small part thanks to an aftermarket steering wheel) over any exotic gold-digger attractor, so it’s about the only thing I am snobby about with a car. Of course, because I’m odd, I also love old school personal luxury coupes and they pretty much have anti steering feel, but they are not driver’s cars and it fits their character to be completely overboosted.
I found the GR86 to be one of the most disappointing cars I have ever driven, so YMMV. A much better example of a car with great electric steering is a MK7 GTI. Or a 911, but that is a bit out of reach of most people.
I do think, and BMW fanbois are NOTORIOUS for this, that too many people think heavy steering equates to good steering feel. Heavy steering masks feel, and some of the finest steering cars have had quite light steering. ’80s BMWs for instance have relatively light steering (and low geared for that matter), but are fantastic. RWD Peugeots are actually even better.
I think a big “problem” with EPAS is simply that it allows engineers to tune it any way they want far more so than hydraulic steering does. For better and too often for worse.
I agree about BMWs. I wouldn’t rank the older ones as bad, I just think they’re overrated.
I’ve only heard negative things about EPAS 911s in comparison to the old ones. I haven’t driven them—for their near Camry-like ubiquity, I don’t actually know anyone who owns one.
The earlier GTIs I’d driven were OK, but nothing special enough to stand out, though I’m one who has never understood the VW/Audi appeal. (Except the Scirocco! Not a dream car or anything, but I liked those. I can’t remember the steering feel now, so that probably means it wasn’t bad.) That said, I haven’t driven any VWs past the Mk5. Seems odd that they’d get better while everything else gets worse, but more power to them if they have.
Besides weight, another thing people commonly mix up is precision, which isn’t the same thing as feel. Plenty of cars have precise steering, but you don’t really feel the road surface. I want to tell if I ran over a nickel or quarter (though I don’t care if it’s heads or tails), feel the tread blocks flexing through my hands, but that’s a kind of rawness that it seems few people (ever) want(ed) and I think with the way cars are so isolated now, it would stand out as being out of place to have with everything else so double-rubbered. I can’t believe VR isn’t more successful.
I think my point is that EPAS GTIs don’t steer any differently than the previous hydraulic steered cars. At the end of the day, it’s still a nose-heavy FWD car, it’s never going to be amazeballs. Just a very practcal car with an added dose of fun. Perfect for daily driving use. Same with my Mercedes for that matter – the EPAS in a W/S212 doesn’t feel any different than what you got in the older cars. I have driven a newer 911 with EPAS, if you hadn’t told me I would not have known the difference. The whole car is a lot less raw than an old one, of course.
BMW very intentionally tuned the F3X generation cars to remove feedback in response so customer clinics. The average BMW buyer of today wants a Lexus with a BMW badge, and that is exactly what BMW gave them. That it alienates a tiny number of us on the Internet matters very little to them. I do think they got it pretty right in the later generations, and while I would not have held up my M235i as a paragon of steering feel, it was “fine” and good enough for what the car was intended for. And I preferred the lighter weighting to my e91 and e88, both of which have ludicrously heavy steering. BMW actually offered a fix for that in the optional variable ratio steering, but I think that went too far in the other direction, and the non-linear response based on speed bugged me too. I suppose you get used to it, but I found it disconcerting as it wasn’t just effort, it was also how much you needed to turn the wheel that changed.
Ultimately, when you find what works for you, just keep buying it.
I can’t agree with the GR86 comment, as I think it’s a brilliant car. But I’ll agree that EPAS is a tool that’s a lot harder to get right than it is to get wrong. The F-generation BMW’s are absolutely RUINED by their EPAS tuning. And we have a 440xi GC, which would be a really lovely car, if not for that.
Meh, it’s a lovely chassis with the wrong engine in it and wrong tires under it stock. Should have been a turbo. Though I haven’t driven the latest with the new engine. Supposedly much better now, and it needed to be.
BMW provided exactly what the majority of their customers want – a Lexus with a BMW badge. If you don’t like that, you should have bought an older one. I will take my e91 to the grave with me. Though I think the steering of that car is unnecessarily heavy. They got it more right in the e30-e36s, though e30 steering was a tad too slow at 4 turns lock to lock, especially give they were a lot more tailhappy than the succeeding cars with multi-link rear suspensions. Upgrading my ’91 318is to a Z3 rack with 3.2 made it about perfect. But a Z3 was basically the ultimate e30.
The stock tires on the GR86 are absolute garbage as they’re the only tire I’ve driven on where the grip was unpredictable and they loved to howl like a bias ply. I’ve driven on bald and decades old tires I thought were better because I knew their limits. I never drove the FA20 and I know I would hate it for the torque dip and lack of torque. The FA24 is underwhelming, but I find it minimally acceptable. It still has a torque dip despite reviews declaring it gone and peak is lower, but I swear my old EJ22 felt stronger even with taller gearing. Changing tires is a must, plus the spring on the clutch pedal (stock one is inconsistent and feeling was overboosted, spring change makes it decent). Toyota’s throttle calibration is also terrible as it hits WOT at about 60% of pedal travel. For something originally billed as a budget track car, one would think finer fidelity in the pedal would be preferred.
Like I said, the most disappointing new car test drive I have ever had, after the big drumming up of anticipation by the buff books. It’s a lovely chassis, but spoiled by all of those things. I don’t think you should have to make a bunch of homebrew modifications to a brand new car to get it to drive properly.
There was nowhere to go but up in the engine department, but IMHO it should have had a turbo from day one, and given the success of the WRX it is completely and utterly baffling to me that they never have. Keep the N/A econobox lumps for all the secretaries who buy these things to tootle around in, and offer the real engine for the drivers among us. And at the end of the day, the Miata is still a far better drive. Though I find it equally baffling that Mazda has never offered a proper fixed roof Miata coupe (preferably with a hatch)! Equally baffling, and seems like such a no brainer. Even here, at enthusiast’s central, so many people HATE convertibles and refuse to own them. Put a turbo in that and you have a nice replacement for the RX-7, even without the dorito.
I wanted a fastback Miata coupe since they sold that limited edition in Japan. That would also solve the problem of it being too cramped as having a fastback would allow them to allow the seat more adjustment and there would be space for stuff. Back then, though, they sold a lot better. With their sales numbers now, there’s no way to justify the necessary changes to the BiW.
I had a 1st gen FR-S. The 2nd gen GR86 fixes all the problems other than harshness and highway NVH. It’s fantastic to drive on the OEM Pilot Sport 4S tires. A turbo would ruin the car, as it would make it exceedingly expensive, heavier, and push the CG forward and up. Faster? Sure. But that’s not the point of this car. I went from the FR-S to a 335i, which was an awesome road car, but not a great track car, to a 128i, which was maybe the goldilocks between them. It’s taken a significant amount of modification to get it truly track capable, though. I still want to get an 86 to compliment my 128i and hand them both down to my twin boys in ~15 years if they are deserving. We don’t know how good we had it and have it right now.
Meh, it wouldn’t have to be wildly more powerful as a turbo. And certainly not massively heavier. But a good small turbo would fix the dilemmas of the original engine. I will just take your word for the second generation – others have replied that it DIDN’T really fix the problems – and IMHO the original was AWFUL. Completely ruined what was obviously a great chassis, along with the shit tires they put on the thing originally.
1-series are fantastic cars. I absolutely love my 6spd ’11, though as a base convertible 128i it is in no way a track weapon, nor do I have any interest in it being one. Not my jam, if I wanted to do track days I would do what my buddy does and buy a Formula V or Formula Ford and tow it behind the 1-series to the track, LOL.
I wouldn’t mind a sport package coupe to go with it though, one of the rare times I would actually want the sport suspension in a BMW of that generation, as it would be a “just cane it on back roads for fun” sort of car for me. But I have too many cars already. I’d even plead temporary insanity and consider a 135i coupe. It’s only setting money on fire when it breaks, right?
There are a lot of things that go into a purchase decision and two things can be true. It’s completely fair to criticize BMW, of all companies, for getting the EPAS so wrong. I knew the steering was horrid in these cars. But, we bought it anyway because it was offered to us at under market value, it was a triple individual optioned car, with track handling package, and fit our immediate needs. We were looking for a G20 330i M Sport CPO to get something that we could pound on year-round, replacing our too-nice-for-winters highly modified E61 535i xDrive Touring, when this fell in our laps.
Then you suck it up and deal with the less than ideal steering. <shrug> Having driven all of them and owned an F22, I would not consider the steering to be “horrid”. Just less good than it probably should have been. But MASSIVELY better than those first few years of F30s. Those were legitimately kind of bad (for a BMW anyway, no worse than the average Lexus sedan, etc, very intentionally).
That they are all automatics is reason enough for me to have no interest in the later cars at all. I tolerate the autotragic in my Mercedes wagon because I need one car dear old Mom can drive in a pinch. Otherwise, nope. And Mom will probably have to suck it up and rent when/if she needs a second car when I get rid of it. But less of an issue now that she has a new car, and not an old one.
Electric power steering is inherently bad. It adds considerably rotating mass to the steering column which acts as a mass damper and deadens the steering feedback and response. Even if the motor is turned off.
A hydraulic system is a damper too. Try driving a car with hydraulic steering with the belt off the pump and get back to me.
It’s all about the tuning. BMW intentionally tuned the F3X cars the way they did based on customer clinic feedback. Sucks for those of us who don’t like how a Lexus drives, but that is ultimately what the general public want. And note that those cars set sales records, despite the whining from the Internet peanut gallery. I simply chose not to buy any of them. Though I thought the steering of my M235i was perfectly fine for what I used it for.
I did that once. My legacy’s PS pump went or there was some other reason I had to drive it without power for a few days and that was some armstrong steering when parking—two hands and I had to lean into it (also had a smaller diameter steering wheel and wider tires, which didn’t help), though it wasn’t bad when the car was moving.
Amusingly, when I bought my first of two BMW 318is’s, I just thought it had manual steering. It was “fine” like most light cars with manual steering, just heavy at parking speeds. Didn’t think much of it, early 4-cyl 3’s had PS as an option even in the US. Then I got the thing home and was going through it and found the empty PS reservoir. Oops. Turned out to have a VERY leaky steering rack, but until the fluid pissed out it worked fine. Swapped the rack and went merrily on my way. That car was a bit rusty, a couple years later I bought a much nicer one that also had a leaky rack (there’s a theme there) and also needed the suspension doing, so I just swapped the whole front subframe, rack, suspension and all. Junked the first one, it was worth more in parts than as a car.
Sure wish I still had that second one though – absolutely brilliant cars with the featherweight rev, rev, rev, rev twincam four in the nose. That thing drove like it was Italian, all the revs, all the time. Ultimately slightly slower than a 325is, but it handled SO much better. I sold it for what seemed like ALL the money back in about 2010, turned a nice profit on it, but they are worth 3X as much now.
Yes, a hydraulic power steering system is a damper too. Damaged steering feel is an inherent drawback of power steering. It’s usually (way)worse with electric power steering than it is for hydraulic, although obviously an F350’s power steering system probably provides more damping than a 2001 Honda Insight’s tiny little EPS rack.
My daily (1991 Accord) actually has the belt taken off the power steering pump(actually no pump anymore because I did eventually get around to removing the pump and bracket). I have been driving it like this for a couple years, so I have definitely experienced a disconnected hydraulic rack. It feels great. I’m sure it would be better if it was an actual manual rack, but it feels great how it is. In fact, I greatly prefer its steering to that of my other identical Accord, which has working power steering.
Presumably you have drained the fluid out of the system, at which point it effectively IS a manual rack.
Ultimately, you do you, but for anything weightier than my Spitfire, I will take the power assist, thanks (and I put a 1In BIGGER steering wheel on that car to lighten the steering a bit). Good EPS doesn’t feel any different to me than good hydraulic, and bad of either is just bad. <shrug>
The system is full of fluid(it depends on it for lubrication) and even if I removed the fluid it would still have the piston sliding in the cylinder for the assist ram and adding friction and damping. It is also still a power rack ratio.
My experience with this car and others is that manual steering is a complete non-issue above like 3mph and usually the power steering doesn’t do almost anything above 20-25mph(and what it does do is usually detrimental). Even at speeds below 3mph it’s not that big a deal in my Accord, I can dry steer it on pavement with one hand. Large sedans or pickups I definitely want power steering.
We can definitely agree that bad hydraulic power steering exists, most 2010+ vehicles I have driven had absolutely horrendous rubbery steering, and this is coming from somebody who drives 80s Jeeps.
Float barges from the 60s on up are even worse. Grace of God steering, because it feels like you are holding a frisbee up in front of you for all you can feel anything through the wheel. Yuck.
But like I said, you do you. I see no reason to do more work than necessary, and a good power assist system also pays dividends in the twisties at speed. Certainly a major limit of the handling of my ’84 GLI was how damned heavy the steering got once loaded up in a hard corner. Something that was very much NOT an issue with my power-steering equipped ’90 GLI, despite it being a bigger and heavier car on wider tires. Made the car feel MUCH more nimble all the time. The 84 was “fine” and overall it was the better of the two cars for a variety of reasons, but the ’90 had far better steering, and the ’84 would have been better with it too.
Are there really people calling retrofit power steering kits “weird” or is this one of those “Doctors hate this simple trick…” kind of headlines?
Personally, I’d just fix the OEM power steering on a E30. I upgraded my ’91 318is to a quicker Z3 rack for that matter. But I agree that adding power steering can make a lot of sense, especially for classic cars that can be very, very heavy to steer. Even my ’84 VW GLI with fat sticky tires could be a bit of a problem at times.
I have also driven coach buses without power steering – THAT is a character building exercise even with about 111 turns lock-to-lock.
Wow, this would be great for the Mondial. Parallel parking a Ferrari is fun (and fun to watch), but this could easily add another ten years of driving as I age out of the Armstrong method.
I love this!
I immediately think of Prius Offroad, which sells some accessories for Priuses that look funny at a glance, but are pretty well-made, as far as I can tell, having bought a bunch of them.
I’d rather do the opposite.
With the proper steering ratio, for any car I actually want to drive, manual steering is just fine, and one less thing to break.
Every day i wake up and thank the car gods that you are not in charge of product planning for major OEMs
Hah yeah no power steering is not fun I had a 73 Javelin and my dad still has a 77 firebird and 57 bel air they are fine moving as decent speeds but low speed turning is such a pita. Even my 89 Firebird with power steering is so sloppy compared to newer power steering systems
Where is the modern production of classic cars you speak of? (in the US mind you).
I’d like a step by step explanation of how you got to this point from my comment.
Thank you in advance.
Article is titled “Vintage Car Owners Are Adding Modern Power Steering To Their Cars. Here’s Why That’s Not Weird”
Key words being “Vintage Car Owners”
That is a great stretch from what i initially replied.
Not at all. Article is about classic cars, you said
Since this article is about vintage car owners I asked
Since I’m based in the US after all and have no plans to move.
Because cars would be too cheap and reliable?
I agree somewhat, but depending on the vehicle, there’s often only so much you can do unless you want to invest heavily into suspension.
My ’65 Suburban is still manual steering, but it’s recirculating ball and stock caster angle is steep (small angle, very vertical). That steep angle is to keep the steering “lighter” but it results in poor tracking at highway speeds. I modified the lower control arms (well, the shafts) to increase caster angle in an attempt to improve highway tracking; which it did, but now low-speed turning is even harder.
I don’t have a ton of reasonably priced options from here. Highway tracking still isn’t exactly what I want (it likely won’t ever be, given it is recirculating ball), and I’m not willing to further increase caster because my wife already refuses to drive it because the low-speed steering is so heavy already. The cheapest is probably running narrower tires up front… but that’s lame.
Changing the steering ratio? Yeah, not many options for that…
I’ve considered power steering, and maybe someday I’ll add it. It’d fix most of my complaints, but it’d ruin the “simplicity”. That being said, power steering (especially hydraulic) has been around for a long ass time, and isn’t that complicated, and they aren’t unreliable either.
Take a look at Volvo (and I think Mercedes Benz) electric power steering pump swaps. They are still hydraulic, but you don’t have to put them on the motor, as the pump itself is electric. Then you just need the hydraulic steering box.
Came here to say this. One of the new hotness updates to the E30 chassis is the N52 + Getrag GS6-17DG BGO 6-speed manual swap with the Volvo electric power steering pump.
Manual steering ratios are much slower. More turning of the wheel to go around the corner isn’t ideal in a car that handles well.