Hi everyone, after a year and a half hiatus I’m a Subaru owner again, bought a 2001 H6 VDC with 230k miles, owner was going to junk it but he agreed to sell it to me for $700 cad (~$500 usd) as the junkyard was going to offer him $650 lol. Anyway the main reason it was destined for the junkyard was he believed the rack and pinion was on the way out. The steering wheel is 45 degrees clockwise off centre, but pretty much operates as normal. Besides the understandable power steering pump groan for a vehicle with this mileage, the wheel is pretty smooth turning BUT it has a notchy sound to it. Note it just appears to be a sound as the wheel turning is actually very smooth as it should be. There appears to be very little play and no leaks. You turn the wheel a tiny bit, the wheels turn a tiny bit whether standing still or going at speed. So besides that notchy sound and the steering wheel being 45 degrees off centre when straight the steering feels pretty good now though a tad more over assisted then I would like. (When I drove the car home the steering did not feel perfectly linear all the time like the power steering pump was cutting out for a split second or something once in a while but after bleeding the system with cap off the reservoir and the wheels on the ground because I was too lazy to jack the car, after going full lock like 50 times the wheel appears to be very smooth now. However the steering wheel is still really off centre and still have that notchy sound. Power steering fluid is full btw, actually little bit above “hot max” even when cold. However the level did not appear to fluctuate much after bleeding it, just raised a tiny bit when warmed up).
Previous owner acquired the car and and to pass safety (which it did August of this year) put in various stuff but the main thing he put in was new tie rods (he’s not 100% sure but thinks both outer and inner tie rods where put in) and he said his mechanic did do an alignment. Previous owner then noticed the steering wheel being 45 degrees off (he doesn’t remember if it was before the mechanic put the new tie rods and alignment in because he just had it for a very short time prior to giving the car to the mechanic) and when he went back to the mechanic the mechanic said the rack and pinion was on it’s way out. But I don’t see any play in the steering wheel or any leaks. I’m OK to drive the car as is but would prefer to get the steering wheel looking normal again just because it looks a little disconcerting. I don’t want to replace the rack unnecessarily and drop over a grand to fix it because it might be a waste of money as I’m still in the process of seeing if the transmission is in decent shape (on top of that this vehicle will need tires and a windshield and eventually a new battery and the muffler fixed) and I could just resell it and get my money back at this point without loosing a dime. Would another alignment from a competent shop (have a feeling the previous owner’s mechanic wasn’t all that competent) or adjusting the new tie rods or perhaps some wd40 on the u joint I keep reading about in these forums fix the problem?
Apologies for the long post, just trying to put as much detail as possible in a concise manner.
