Signs of a bad steering rack?
 

What are the signs of a bad steering rack? Lately it seems like my car wants to wander on the road. The alignment is good, it does not pull or wear the tires funny. Tracks strait. But lately the on center feel is very numb and like I have to keep correcting to keep the car going straight. I can move the wheel 20deg either way before the car responds. I had the car inspected and it came back clean, no bad front end components. So, could the rack be going? THe car has 106,000 miles on it.

The tires are getting low, like 4/32s left. Maybe that is it?

Jay

You have a bad rack, no questions asked.

I had my stock rack fail cornering at 70k miles. The dealership installed a reman rack at the cost of $1000 total. The reman rack had the numb feel on-center which you describe -- it had a dead spot from the 11 o clock to 1 o clock position that was only noticeable at higher speeds. On the highway you had to constantly correct to stay in your lane. I replaced the rack myself for $75 w/ a low mileage factory, not remanufactured, rack and all is well (except I'm having a hell of a time bleeding the last bit of air out of the system). GM had a ton of problems with the durability of 90s steering racks. They are absolutely, THE worst.

The rack just went out on the Trans Sport last week. :x $682 later I have a new rack and the car feels brand new. Some of my symptions were alot of play in the wheel until you get feedback, shaking in the wheel when you let off the gas and brake usually at higher speeds, it would bog to engine at idle when trying to turn the wheel at a stand still, and of coarse an empty power stearing fluid tank with a huge puddle of powerstearing fluid on the ground. As for the durability of it, I can't be too mad - it lasted over 260,000 miles.