So you are driving along and the you make a right turn but the steering seems to have no assist that direction. You turn to the left and it turns normally. A little bit scary as you wonder what is going on. Can this even be possible?

Not only is this possible, its more common than you think. Fluid enters the steering rack and goes into the valve. The valve actually has a left valve and a right valve depending on which way you want to go. It is actually more common for one of these to become clogged or fail rather than both. So you could lose steering to either the left or the right side. Neither side is more common.

The picture below shows the actual valve inside of a Volkswagen steering rack. You would only see this if you took it apart. The picture shows the two different valves and as the valve rotates with the direction of the vehicle the assist changes. Pretty clever engineering, especially when you consider that steering valves were invented in the 1950’s.

If your vehicle does not steer to one way or another, you will need to replace the whole steering rack.




For steering parts, visit our store here.