AW11 Steering Wheel Center varies

[Eric.]

This is a really weird problem and nobody seems to understand it at all.

1987 MR2. Lets say the wheel is centered like it should be and going straight down the road. Make a hard right turn, straighten the wheel, and now instead of being at center, the steering wheel is about 15 degrees to the right. Do the same turning to the left and it will return to the center position. There's nothing else going on. Just replaced the two external steering rack bushings with Prothane ones and it didn't get better. Everything including tie rods feels tight.

Doesn't have to be taking a turn and actually getting under load either, I can jerk the wheel quickly at any speed and make it be offset. In normal driving it happens either on fast turns if the steering is under a decent load and in intersections.

Possible that the rack itself is worn? I got the car a year ago with badly warped rotors, so it had a ton of wheel shake on the brakes until I had them turned. Its also been suggested to me that the rack guide could maybe be adjusted to fix it.

Very open to suggestions.

[Fab4MR2]

I'm afraid that your problem is the new prothane rack bushings that you just installed. I had the same thing happen to me a number of years ago. I switched back to the oem bushings and the problem instantly disappeared, lol. I have since run into a number of other people who also had to switch back to the oem bushings because of this.

The problem is that many of the prothane rack bushings are not sized properly, and because of this they do not put proper pressure on the rack, and it can slip from side to side slightly under the exact situations that you outlined.

Prothane never should have ever been used in the first place to manufacture bushings that are used for a situation that requires side to side resistance, as it is inherently slippery. The oem ones are more than adequate for the pressure put on the rack, and of course have much better grip, not only because they are rubber, but also because they are sized properly.

[MR2Jedi]

Interesting.
I was was gonna go prothane bushings all around on my 2nd gen.
After reading this, I think I'll stick with OEM.