Steering rack tie rod? EGR tubes?

[jeremy fisher]

Hi, my mums Astra H 1.6 went in for diagnostics today and came back with a list of problems that had nothing to do with the engine?!?
One of the things on the list was 'play in steering rack tie rod', is this a fancy way of saying track rod end or is the bit the rod end screws onto?
Its been running a bit iffy and sometimes, usually after putting it under higher loads eg. hard acceleration it runs on 3 cylinders and judders when accelerating. The guy at Vaux said that there's some metal strips and some small tubes that can get blocked easily and need cleaning out, something to do with the egr valve? He told my mum and she told me so I didn't get the chance to ask what the hell he was on about! Anyone have any ideas what he meant?
Oh yeah, the error codes were cleared and so far none have returned.
Another thing was, 2 springs were broken, been seeing this a hell of a lot, what are they making them from now? never known an older car to have broken suspension springs!!
Thanks.
Nick.

[Balley]

Yes a Tie rod is also a track rod end,

Egr Pipe maybe?

and the rear springs are common on astras. They do an aftermarket updated one though which are cheaper than genuine still!

[phazer]

Those pigtails are a pain in the backside! They snap for fun on the mk4 and the Corsa C....who'd have though a tiny thin piece of metal would shear off under load regularly lol

[staggy_gsi]

Play in steering rack tie rod sounds like they mean the actual arm to me, rather than the end. this is pretty common on some new vauxhalls, corsa/combo's in particular but ive done several on the astra...