Loose/dead feeling steering

[Emeek123]

Hi all,
Just wondered if somebody could please offer me some advice. So I bought my Golf GTI Edition 30 around 4 months ago now. All ran fine up until last month I noticed a slight knocking noise when moving the steering left to right when stationary. The steering also had a dead feel around the centre and was generally a lot more vague than when I first bought the car. After having all the bushes and ball joints inspected and coming back ok, I opted to have a new steering rack put. The new steering rack has cured the knocking noise from left to right, however there is still a great deal of deadness in the centre and doesn’t feel half as good as it did when I first bought it. Any other ideas what this could be? The last place I could think of is the UJ joints in the column but wouldn’t have thought these failing was common

[pudding]

How many miles on it?  It could well be the steering column as it has 2 UJs to wear out.  A tiny bit of play down there translates into much more at the steering wheel.  I would make sure the geometry and tyres are up to snuff before launching yourself down that road. 

[Emeek123]

95000 miles on it. Thanks for the advice I will get the steering column looked at next. What’s strange is when I bought the car 4 months ago the steering seemed fine. Confused as to how it could deteriorate so quickly?! Hopefully I’ll get there eventually

[Emeek123]

Just an update on this. I’ve had the UJ joints checked and everything came back fine. Question I’ve got is has anyone else put an aftermarket steering rack in their car and the steering feel changed? To go into more detail, it feels way too light and has very little feel to it. The car feels completely lairy under hard acceleration. Torque steers way more than when I first bought the car and is pretty scary to drive. There are no knocking noises or other symptoms. Car feels completely tight over bumps. Just steering lacks feel and doesn’t inspire any confidence to drive hard

[pudding]

Didn't know you could get aftermarket racks!

Mine has the gen3 rack (MK6 Golf) fitted and the steering feels the same.

Any other changes recently, or anything else worn out?  That kind of behaviour under acceleration points to either a geometry change as the weight transfers backwards (worn out suspension components or improper static geometry), or possibly shot engine mounts.  Mine felt like that recently but after changing the engine mount (new oem ones) it's behaving itself again.