This topic is meant to document my experience with steering return issues that I faced when I purchased an old Honda City EXI, year 2000. The previous owner decided not to share any information about this issue with me while purchasing the car.
The purpose is to help anyone else as well in case they face a similar issue. This can happen with any car and the problem is not specific to Honda City.
The problem I faced was the with car's suspension especially the steering, rack and pinion assembly.
There were 2 majors problems:
- Very Hard Steering
- Steering would not return by itself after making a turn.
Originally I thought that the suspension had gone bad so we proceeded with the usual remedies which involved:
- Changing the complete hydraulic power steering unit including the rack.
- Besides this shocks, springs and other ancillaries were also changed.
This improved the steering but it was still harder than a stock car with suspension in good condition.
The next thing we did was converting the car's power steering system from Hydraulic to EPS. This involved modifying an existing electronic Honda power steering system to fit the City.
With the EPS enabled the steering was now lighter than stock.
However despite all of the above the steering would not return by itself after negotiating a turn.
In desperation we turned on hydraulic as well as motorized power assist to make the steering even lighter. It then became so light that turning it became a joke.
BUT, the steering would still not return after going through a turn!
So we started doing out of the box thinking and a detailed inspection of the car's frame revealed a damaged section. This section had been dented and had moved about 1.5 inches from its original position causing a misalignment in the rack which makes it impossible for the steering to return by itself.
We are now attempting to correct this dent and bring the frame piece back to its original position.
So far this has been a very costly and patience taxing endeavor. I will update this post again after the dent has been removed and further testing.
Right Damaged Side
Left Undamaged Side
