“Not mentioning this is crazy.”
Bringing a car in for a specific complaint doesn’t mean that’s the only thing a mechanic is going to notice—at least not a good mechanic. Sometimes what they find turns out to be a bigger issue than whatever you actually came in for.
That’s what happened when one man took his car in to fix the air conditioning. What the mechanic found has inspired laughter galore. But it could actually be a serious issue.
In a trending video with more than 69,000 views, mechanic Michael “Mike” Burnett (@lilmikyb) got into a customer’s Ford to check out a reported A/C problem. He immediately had a different concern.
He started off playfully saying, “Hi, my name is Michael, and I’ll be working on your piece of garbage today.”
“I know you really wanted to check why your A/C is not working, and that’s your complaint. But my complaint would be, why are you driving around like this?”
In the video you see him grab the top of the steering wheel and pull it back and forth repeatedly. The entire top of the steering wheel bends like taffy.
“I feel like not mentioning this is crazy,” Burnett wrote in the caption.
According to CarParts.com, if a stationary vehicle’s steering wheel can turn two or more inches without the wheels themselves changing angle, that’s excessive play.
The usual suspects behind it are a bad pitman arm, a loose intermediate shaft, a steering gear or rack that’s come loose from the body or frame, a damaged steering column, or worn tie rod ends.
On older vehicles, a failed rag joint in the steering column can also cause it. CarParts.com notes that driving with excessive play is not recommended under any circumstances, since it forces constant overcorrection just to hold a straight line.
In this instance, the frame of the steering wheel itself appears to be broken or somehow degraded. It’s not clear what could’ve caused it or how it affects the steering. Though it is possible that some type of impact caused the steering wheel to bend.
In typical cases, steering issues tend to fall into a handful of categories, according to AutoZone:
AutoZone’s general advice is that a proper wheel alignment is often the right starting point since it lets a technician check the alignment and inspect the related components for wear at the same time.
The comments were full of people joking about the wheel’s flexibility.
“I’ve never in my life seen a boneless steering wheel before,” a top comment read.
“Michael it’s paid off…. Just fix the A/C,” a person joked.
“It’s okay they make pills to help it stay stiff now,” chortled another.
One commenter offered a semi-plausible explanation: “Without A/C it melted?”
Update Aug. 7: Via email, Burnett told Motor1, “For context, the car came in for an air conditioning diagnostic and it was pretty funny because you don’t realize how much you push/pull the steering wheel until you meet a floppy one and now you’re out of balance.”
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