is it that hard to really center a steering wheel or is there something wrong that needs replacing?

Thank you for your time
-Jonathan

 

No, centering a steering wheel is easy....

What's your problem?

 

Alignment!

 

I had a hard time getting mine straight after I changed the clutch (dropped the subframe). I gave up and just took it in for an alignment.

 

The alignment place needs to center it.

 

They've tried a handful of times but to no avail. what could it be? mind you I've gotten at least 5 alignments and the wheel is still cocked to the right.

 

Well are they doing it properly ? Holding the steering wheel while aligning the car and tightening the outer tie rods when finished, just sayin.

 

I believe its a matter of adjusting the tie rods and equal amount on both sides. If not done equally, the adjusted alignment will be thrown of spec

Sometimes it can take the shop 2-3 trys to get it centered. You have to drive the car each time they adjust

 

Well, I've done it myself in my garage at home and it was no biggie. So.......

 

Guessing you've had the subframe down?

Turn the wheel lock to lock and count the turns, divide in half and bring the wheel back to that point, thats the center of your rack &pinion.

If the wheel is off at that point you can unhook the shaft under the dash and put it back on so the wheel is centered. There isn't an indexing devce on these shafts so if you dont mark it before taking it apart you'll need to mess with it to get it right.

 

you have one of two problems going on.....

Either as the post above states, that your steering wheel is not correctly in alignment with the rack, or one of your tie rod ends are not evenly spaced on the rack.

So, as the above says... first we want to check your steering wheel alignment with the rack. with your car parked and your steering wheel perfectly straight, place a piece of tape at the 12 O'clock position. Turn the steering wheel all the way to the right, and mark the position of the tape, then turn the wheel all the way to the left, and mark the position of the tape. It should be a mirror image of what it was before. So if the first position was at 5' O clock, the 2nd should be at 7' O clock.

If you have it at 3 O'clock, and 6' O'clock, then your steering wheel is out of alignment with The rack. To fix this, drive the car perfectly straight, and come to a complete stop. Then under the dash, remove the one bolt holding the steering linkage U joint to the steering rack. While squeezing the clamp on the linkage, slide the U joint up the steering shaft. Put the steering wheel perfectly straight, and slide the U joint back onto the rack, and replace the bolt.

If when you do the lock to lock, and they come out a mirror image of each other, then your Tie rod ends are not threaded on your rack evenly, and your alignment shop has their heads up their asses... BEFORE THEY DO THE ALIGNMENT, they are supposed to CENTER THE STEERING WHEEL AND LOCK IT CENTERED (typically they do this with a clamp between the steering wheel and the floorboard or the brake pedal.

Then they can align the tie rod ends.

Make sure with your alignment that it's a numbers matching alignment (one decimal place or so off is acceptable)... and not just "In the green" Where there can be a large variance from one side to the other and it's "good enough"

 

I had the dash apart and pulled the steering column at the floorboards coupling. When the column went back in I got the column on a different spline and my steering wheel was not straight. So, I just reset the tie rods rather than going to the trouble of pulling the column again.

I have a trammel bar made of scrap lumber I use for setting toe. First I adjusted the tie rods until the steering wheel was straight. Then, I adjusted both sides until toe was zero. This mean raising the car a few times and pulling wheels. Boring work but within an hour I was done.

Probably the shop doesn't want to go to the trouble of putting the car on the rack several times.

 

I'm sure that worked to get the wheel straight but you are taking you steering wheel being off center and instead making your steering rack off center to fix it. Which can create some awesome turn radius changes right to left, been there done that.

Equal throw (turns) side to side from center is important. It takes about 10min to pull the column out.

 

I was most likely off by a spline. There is probably more error than that in the assembly tolerances of the front subframe.

 

Turn your steering wheel so it's centered. Lock it in place with a steering lock, or someone sitting in the car. Now go out to each side and with a pipe or something long enough to go across the wheel, look at the line and see if one side is pointing in or out. If you can see that one wheel is not straight, go under and adjust the tie rod until its straight.
I had my steering wheel slightly cocked on my last AWD-TSi, and had wear on the inner right side tire. After I set the wheel straight, and adjusted rod I didn't have any more problems.

N