I have a 1997 K1500 Suburban. It's my wife's daily driver so I don't drive it everyday, but probably every two or three days. I got in it about a week ago and the steering was not re-centering very well after a turn or even while driving on a curve. I can let go of the steering wheel on a curve and it just keeps following the road instead of wanting to straighten out the wheels. It's strange because it's not a problem that gradually appeared. One day it was totally fine and a day or two later, we have a problem!
I decided to start with a peek underneath while having my wife rock the steering wheel back and forth. Everything looked tight. Next, I had an alignment done and the caster was fine (they fine tuned some stuff but nothing was way out of whack). I was secretly hoping the caster was way off because in my mind, the symptoms point to that. That is as far as I've gotten. I feel like I'd be throwing likely unneeded parts at it with my lack of diagnosis ideas on this one.
What else can I say about the symptoms?
-There's not much play (if any) in the steering wheel that I can tell.
-Vehicle's steering won't recenter well after turns.
-When driving straight, the vehicle has no self-correcting tendencies. There's no binding, tightness or noises/clunking in the steering.
-If you were to turn the truck within 5 or 10 degrees of center and took your hands off the wheel, it would keep going in the direction you pointed it instead of straightening out.
Thank you for any ideas you guys may have!
I decided to start with a peek underneath while having my wife rock the steering wheel back and forth. Everything looked tight. Next, I had an alignment done and the caster was fine (they fine tuned some stuff but nothing was way out of whack). I was secretly hoping the caster was way off because in my mind, the symptoms point to that. That is as far as I've gotten. I feel like I'd be throwing likely unneeded parts at it with my lack of diagnosis ideas on this one.
What else can I say about the symptoms?
-There's not much play (if any) in the steering wheel that I can tell.
-Vehicle's steering won't recenter well after turns.
-When driving straight, the vehicle has no self-correcting tendencies. There's no binding, tightness or noises/clunking in the steering.
-If you were to turn the truck within 5 or 10 degrees of center and took your hands off the wheel, it would keep going in the direction you pointed it instead of straightening out.
Thank you for any ideas you guys may have!