When I got in this morning the steering wheel came down as per normal but it sounded like it was rubbing and I noticed the column panel around the steering wheel came apart at the sides.

What would cause this? It worked fine last night.

Anything will help.

Thank you.

My grandfather was a stationary steam engineer from Paisley, Scotland. He told us frequently that "Each time a machine starts and runs well, may well be the last time it starts and runs well."

To your immediate issue however it would seem that some plastic bit may have deformed and sprung apart--constant load over time and just general age does that to plastic bits...

It feel as if the entire steering column is out of place. I have to drive with it almost all the way up so it doesn't run. Feels like driving a bus..

I don't think it's the plastic, when I our the steering column back up it clips back into place.

Thoughts?

I had the same thing happen the other day in my M37 and it was weird as s..t. The wheel went to come down when I started it and it made a nasty rubbing noise and I though the column had somehow shifted loose or something. Clam shell casing split apart a bit so I placed it back together and cycled the wheel up and down and at first it seemed to still rub, then it seemed fine. Ghost in the machine type of s..t.
Either way it hasn't happened again so sorry I,m of no help.

That is exactly what happened. I'll try messing with it a bit see if it goes backin place.

I remember that this had happened to someone else on the forums, but "Search" didn't turn up anything, but then I Google'd and the Auto Recalls for Consumers website had this same complaint posted with a link to this thread:

STEERING-WHEEL-RUBBING-PLASTIC-HOUSING-T609452.HTML

Hopefully, this solves your problem before something catastrophic happens while you're driving.
Let us know if this solves your problem.

Craig

It's a plastic cups part that doesn't always have enough clearance, and it can interfere with the movement of the steering column. Every time my son in law drove my car he did something with the steering column adjustments that screwed this up. I would take it apart and get the part re-positioned. Finally I got fed up and cut off the edge of the part that was causing the interference.

It is a quick and simple thing to diagnose and fix. I can't remember the details, but you just have to remove a trim part around the column, then you will see the interference when you operate the column up and down. You can either put the part back where it belongs or you can do as i did and just trim it with a Dremel. It is literally a 15 minute job.