My fiance has been complaining of a 'dead spot' in her steering as of late. I've driven it and only once have I felt it; very odd. Basically, turn the wheel and nothing happened for a second, then it turned as directed.

My guess is steering rack. The car has 215k on it. I'm wondering since it doesn't do it often if I don't just need to tighten up the adjustment on it. Any ideas?

I guess this weekend I'll go ahead and try and adjust it, if that fails; new rack it is!

 

could be your power steering pump

 

Sorry, should've said that... the car does not have power steering.

 

I would say rack. But I'd check everything front end. Dont wanna risk her crashing.. unless your like me and wanting the wife gone.. j/k.. But sounds like a rack issue to me.

 

Ha, nope, this one's a keeper! I guess I'll try and adjust that part on the rack; if that doesn't do it i'll replace it.

Man, I've got my work cut out. Wire tuck, cleaning, bay-respray. effffff

 

I had the same issue last year in my 94 civic cx with about 230,000 miles on the car. The rack had a good amount of play, and it would make one hell of a BANG when i hit a small bump while on the brakes.

 

Ok, so what did you do?

 

I bought a new rack

 

the teeth on the rack that run with the teeth on the steering may be damaged, not giving a smooth wheel turn, but a slightly rugged one.

only thing i can think of

 

I'm not sure what happened to my rack but it had a good amount of side to side play