I took my car in to get a new tie rod installed under warranty from Firestone. (Never go to Firestone!). I got my car back and immediatly noticed the steering wheel was off center. Anyways I got an oil change yesterday, at a toyota shop and asked if they could straighten out the steering wheel for me while they had it up on the lift. The owner of the shop then told me that it seemed to be aligned. And that it probably just needed a whole new steering rack. I politely told him I thought he was wrong.

Here's my steering symptons
-steering wheel off center.
-the tie rod ends seem to be different brands. Different colors and different size nut.

Other than that it seems good.
-i just put on new oem lower ball joints.
-all tie rods are less than a year old.
-i have no vibrations in the steering up to 90 mph.

Shouldnt they be able to just straighten it out without affecting the allignment?
Even if the measurements are equal on both sides could the fact that they are different brands of outer tie rods effect the steering wheel allignment?

You need to take it back to firestone and have them fix the alignment. They are supposed to set the steering wheel straight and have it held in place while doing the alignment so the steering wheel is straight while the truck is driving straight.

Yep! what he said^^^ local shop did this to me. Got in the truck and the wheel wasn't straight. Had a new rack put in 3 months ago. So I knew it wasn't that. They fixed it. Now straight as an arrow! In my experience this has nothing to do with a steering rack. They just half assed it.

Yeah, take it back to Firestone and tell them to do the job right. They supposed to keep some sort of a spring laden arm to hold the steering wheel at the center and then set the alignment. I have life time alignment plans for my car and truck and had it for past several years, still could not find a fault. Don't just wait in the lobby room, I go out and talk to the tech who does the alignment job.

As far as the steering wheel being off, that has nothing to do with the steering rack itself. That's simply a matter of turning the tie rod nuts to adjust, or pulling the lower steering shaft out of the splines and then adjusting it to straight. The shop that installed the tie rod should adjust that. It's part of the job.

As a completely separate issue, your steering rack may or may not be bad. Maybe the Toyota tech was stating that as a separate issue. But if he said the rack is why the steering wheel is off, then yeah he was trying to get your money.

How many miles on the rack? If you don't have slop, vibrations, unstable feeling front end, etc then the rack is fine

I feel no slop. Steers great. Feels like almost no play in the steering wheel. I have 168000 miles on it. Dont know why he would think its the steering rack. I know he said he had a similar issue on his 1990 4runner. But they are completely different...

On a side note they probably didnt even attempt to fix it since it was a last minute request by me.

Unless they put it on the alignment machine and attempted to adjust, there is not any way they can tell you the steering rack is the cause of your issue. And even then, they would still be LIARS! There is simply no way the steering wheel can be that far off after replacing a tie rod. I have seen techs install the steering rack 180 degrees backwards, otherwise, there is simply no way for this to happen. There's only enough adjustment in the tie rods to go about 100 degrees out, or just past a 1/4 turn.

How bad is yours? I have the same issue taking it in on saturday. It is slightly off isnt horrible though. Very annoying because of how I hold the steering wheel.

It's not bad. Enough to annoy me. It's off enough that they should have noticed it though.

Dude, just take it back to Firestone. All they need to do is run the Toe Adjustment again and you'll be set. The just didn't have the steering wheel centered when they set the toe. I see it all the time.

so I took it in for an alignment and they said it needed a rack (all the mount bushings worn out, and lower ball joints + alignment. $1,500. I took it in for an alignment check. I bought aftermarket steering rack bushings $20 and 2 aftermarket lower balljoints, about $ 100, I've never done either of these jobs on this vehicle before but it still only took me about 4 hours. then back to firestone for the alignment. so I spent $120 on parts and 50 or 60 on the alignment $170 versus 1,500 so I paid myself $1,330 for 4 hours work. they probably have 100% mark up on parts so not a lot of incentive to find a cheaper alternative. I'll bet they could do that job in 2 hours. I don't expect them to work for free but there's an awful of profit there