I have recently discovered that an unusual knocking noise from my g/f mini one was adverse play in a knackered steering rack and am going to set about replacing it with a recon one i found at a reasonable price. Before i dive in head first has anyone attempted this previously and did you

A) encounter any major difficulties
B)only gain acsess by removing the front end and engine

cheers for any help in advance, the girls mini has become a real source of displeasure recently she is heavily pregnant and in the last six months we have replaced the gearbox and had the head hela-coiled after a main dealer over tightened a spark plug and shagged the thread in the head, all this at a time where neither of us need the stress or to be forking out constantly. i'm now keeping cost down by doing work myself .

I am going to use my warranty to sort this but I have seen the parts and I know there is a lot of work to do, do you have a Haynes manual? if not I can have a look on how the jobs supposed to be done and send you the information. most of the time this work is warranty work.

The parts new from bmw cost about £250 so it is actually cheaper to get a warranty direct warrant then get someone else to do the work and this will also help you for the rest of the year should anything go wrong...

Sorry I can't be more help.