I've replaced practically everything in the front; bushings, control arms, ball joints, wheel bearings, power steering rack, countless alignments. and my steering still feels like crap, particularly on the highway. It doesn't seem to stay centered. It seems to wander back and forth 2-3 degrees and gets worse when I hit expansion joints and other very small road imperfections. If I flick the steering wheel one direction then let go, it seems to overcorrect past center then finally centers itself. Any idea of what I can do to tighten up the steering/highway stability?

 

How are your struts/springs? How about wheels/tires? Inner/outer tie rods?

 

Struts are KYB-GR2s less than a year old. Tires are Cooper CS4 Touring 215/55R16 less than a year old. Power Steering rack was put in last week, thus new inner tie rods. Outer tie rods were replaced at the same time with moog.

 

Did they center your steering wheel, held it, then adjusted BOTH tie rods at the same time?

 

Yes, i watched them during the whole alignment process. I've even had them set the toe to the outer and inner limits to see if that corrected the problem and no change.

 

you probly got tires that have a low speed rating. that would cauze it to do this.

 

I have 215/55R16 93 H tires.

 

Oh yea, I didn't read the rest of your explanation. It's called Bump steer, our cars have it really bad, and the lower you are, the worst it gets. I have new suspension parts including lower control arms(oem), bushings, stab bar links, inner and outer tie rods, and I feel like I'm going to lose control at times.

 

The OP mentioned struts and not springs, so I would assume OEM springs and therefore no drop, and therefore no bumpsteer.

 

Did u try another alignment shop? Sometimes these guys have no clue what they're doing. I used to go to one shop which boasted computerized alignment yadda yadda. Whenever they aligned my car the results always sucked. Then I went to another reputable shop with no fancy computer or nuthin. They aligned my car so perfectly I could let go of the steering on the highway and leave it runninn straight for a while before it started wandering.

It's all about the reputation yo.

 

The Cooper CS4 is designed for cars, minivans and crossovers.
You are running the wrong tire. I just went through this with a set of Goodyear Comfortreads. They were nothing short of horrible on my 99. The day I replaced them with Kumho ecsta 4x is the day I got my 4 door sports car back. The Goodyear shop that installed the Kumho's (purchased at TireRack) even commented that I was running the wrong tire all this time. You want a tire for a performance sport sedan.

 

Was your steering wheel dancing back and forth on the highway as well?

 

Sounds like your tires have bad belts in them.....Or your strut mounts are extremely worn....

 

I know the tires are less than a year old, but if you have cracked sidewalls on your tires, that will cause the steering wheel to flop side to side. Inspect the tire walls

 

did you replace the steering rack bushing? they get over looked alot

 

h speed rating tires are supposably good for 130 mph but they have flimsy sidewalls

to verify the age of your tires, check the dot number on the tire. one side will have partial dot, the other will have the full dot. the side with the full dot, the last 4 digits are production date. ex. 4809 would mean the 48th week of 2009

 

Its a 5th gen, I thought they all have it....