A funny thing happened to me the other day. I pulled into a shopping centre and suddenly got some strange vibration coming back up through the steering wheel. Even driving straight it felt funny. When I got back into the car to go home there was no problem.

A few days later I pulled into a servo and it started happening again. I stopped the car, and when I restarted 10 minutes later there was no problem.

I put it into my mechanic a few days ago and he went over the steering with a fine tooth comb. The only problem he found was in the linkage from the steering wheel on down (excuse my lack of tech terms...). There is a rod that looks like it has a metal plate to mount on the firewall, and a universal joint at each end. On one of the universal joints, one of the forks (again, tech term?) was bent out on both sides. It was 2-3mm wider than it should have been.

Has anyone else seen this? As I understand it, this part is never meant to be replaced over the life of the car.

Does anyone have any idea how this could have happened? As I understand it, the "full lock" is governed by the mechanical stuff underneath, not anything in the steering column, so hitting a pothole at full lock shouldn't have put an abnormal amount of stress there.

Any ideas?

What car are we talking about here?

If in fact the lower steering column universal joints were faulty, the problem wouldn't be intermittent.
I'd check to make sure the high pressure steering hose is secure, and that the fluid level in the reservoir is correct, and fairly clean.
Flushing the fluid may improve it, or totally fix it. Other than that, I'd say the problem is in the power steering pump or rack.

you are talking about the spline at the top of the steering rack at the bottom of the steering column inside the engine bay

it has a yoke and tigntening bolt the small universal is covered by a boot

easy to replace or fix

the design stops the sterreing wheel getting into your face in an accident

in the picture you can see the steering section /universal near the rack and pinion

http://www.aa1car.com/library/cvjoint2.htm

My car's a '97 TF exec wagon, 4 cylinder manual.

Looking at the picture, the bit replaced was the rod with two universals between the bottom of the column to the wheel, and the rack and pinion steering. It has a metal plate that would be hidden by the passenger side macpherson strut.

It wasn't too bad to replace - 2nd hand part + labor came in around $200ish.

I'm mainly wondering how common this sort of thing is, and if it indicates some sort of accident in the car's past. I know the passenger door has been resprayed, and the front bumper was missing half of the bolts when I bought it. It was supposed to have log books, but the dealer said a bunch of kids had come through a few weeks before and stole all the logs of the cars they test drove. So, the first 8 years of the car's life are a bit of a mystery.

I'm hoping this was the problem, even though the intermittent seems strange. Even if it wasn't, if the universal came apart at 110 I'd be in a world of hurt. Time will tell.

not a common problem should never be

from your observations it
had been in an accident and not fixed properly

as long as its fixed and all the bolts there should be good for a long time