**Dont Buy Crown Parts**

[winner]

I highly suggest you all avoid crown parts. here is my reason

when i first got my jeep there was a lot of steering slop. i traced it down to the steering box. i have a 94 4.0L with manual steering. while looking up prices i found i could get a box with lifetime warranty from advanced auto parts but also knew i could get one from Crown whom i thought was a trusted brand for $340-ish. i figured steering was not something id reall want to skimp on. so i bought the Crown box.

fast forward 5 months after that i was making a U-turn on a 4 line road and heard a loud pop and my steering wheel went lose. in the middle of the road. i quickly found that my pitman arm had broken clean off my steering box.
Pictures:



after sending these pictures to crown i they warrantied the box and sent me another. fast forward to 7 months later (now) the box is out of the original 12 month warranty. just last Saturday i was driving home when i saw a urgent text message from a friend so i pulled over and called her. after the conversation i began to pull back onto the road when again i heard a loud pop and lost steering. the steering box broke again in the exact same spot. this time Crown will not warranty it because it is outside of the original 12 purchase.

but take a look at this picture.


this is pot metal that literally crumbled. it looks like it would almost crumble in your hands. is that what you want to depend on while you are doing 65-70 down the interstate? these were not trail breakages. this happened under normal driving conditions and thank god both happened at slow speeds and not one of the several times i was on the interstate doing 65-70 the 2 weeks prior

Crown has seen the last of my money.

[BigSki]

Lots of bad quality issues from clown auto parts on jeepforum.com especially with the WJ replacement parts. In your last pic the layers of rust show that the shaft was cracked a long time ago and it just propagated until it failed on you.

My money goes to A1 Cardone for re-manned steering boxes. Thankfully you were not injured or caused a serious crash because of this failure.

[BJoe]

I just showed this to my Dad, he was wondering if the alignment on your XJ was off some, as the shaft looks like it has seen some sheering force.

[chino63]

Is that a new part? If so contact the NHTSA and file a claim with them, too many substandard and down right dangerous parts being made off shore.

Glad that happened to you at slow speed and no one was hurt. Pretty scary to think what might have happened.

[Big Daddy]

Yeah, the rust is the scary part of that. It has been cracked for awhile, not a quick shear on that one.