So lately I'm not sure what's going on but my steering feel is very strange. I can't really pin the issue on what it could be but I'll give you a run down of events leading up to it as well:

First off I got my tires rotate. Before my car tracked straight as an arrow. After the rotation I noticed it pulled left when I kept the wheel straight. I have to keep it the right about 3-4 degrees to keep it straight. After 1k miles, it hasn't seemed to change. My quick online research show it can be a bit normal after a rotation but others say it could be a slipped belt in a tire. Maybe? tires are pretty new, about 10k miles on a set of Continental PureContact LS tires, all with good deep tread and no uneven wear far as I can tell.

After getting annoyed about the rotation I took it to a local shop and had them check it out. Told them it pulled and to see what was going on. They supposedly did a test drive, gave me a call and said they thought it felt and when they put it on a machine they said my alignment was only off by like .01 or .1 which is nothing worth spending the money on to fix. However to me the problem still persists.

This weekend I did a trip. I noticed another issue, when over 60 MPH the steering wheel kinda sticks at center. So if I try to steer left or right from center or straight at highway speeds it's like there is a bump or little catch in the steering. Never experienced before and honestly it was very annoying, even my SO felt it. Now I'm not sure if it's related to the rotation, maybe tires, or maybe my steering rack is going bad? Whatever it is I need some ideas here as to what could be going on. Could the shop I went to have tampered with the steering rack?

All of this happened with in a span of a week and never noticed this issue before.

 

@aachowhan - If the car has not received any recent physical damage to the steering rack I doubt the sticking/hanging steering has anything to do with the tire/wheel rotation or the car's alignment, or anything having been tampered with - or the actual steering rack mechanism. My guess is there is an issue with the delivery of the voltage signal for the EPS motor which comes from the electric power steering control unit which is in-turn dependent on the steering wheel angle input. It might take a diagnosis fee for a Lexus technician to identify and confirm the problem, and maybe the control unit module needs to be replaced. There may be a means to reset it - as simple as killing power to the control unit module, but I think it would likely experience the same problem again.

 

Maybe I should try disconnecting the battery and trying to see if it goes away?

If what you are saying is true, then that is very concerning. However no lights are on which is weird if it is the control unit.

Now that I think about it I did have the battery go completely dead on me one day and then a bunch of lights showed up with messages "Brake Malfunction", "Check AWD system", "check abs". It lasted maybe 30 mins and after it went away and never came back. But that was like 2-3 months ago.

 

Depending on how often it happens (e.g. does it happen regularly every time you drive the car or just every once in a while?) - it might be meaningful in some way to learn if disconnecting the battery makes it go away for a short period of time or maybe for a lengthy period of time. Sometimes the result of disconnecting the battery can be a key indicator of what the root problem is...

 

Any time I've above 55-60 MPH it's noticeable 99 percent of the time.

 

Your trip issue...you might have the highway steering wheel issue that should be recalled by Toyota/Lexus but isn't yet. No known fix, only guesses so far (some blame it on LKS, but it occurs on vehicles that don't have it) because it likely is either the EPS or whole front rack problem. See the link below (there are other conversations if you search).

Steering Wheel Sticking Issue

If you do have the problem, report it to NHTSA at this link: https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem#index

 

Wow yeah this seems like exactly my issue. Good to know I'm not the only one, but this is somewhat scary. If I can't figure this out, I think I'll be trading this car in.
Thanks for the link!

 

I've posted about the Rack for years now. As BC said, have you taken it to a Lexus Dealer for them to try and determine the problem? This can't be determined over the internet. Also, what year and model GS is your GS?

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-...long-post.html

 

Not yet, I just experienced the issue during my weekend trip out of town, going there and coming back the entire time basically over 55-60MPH on the interstate. I'll be taking it to the dealer soon, however based on what I'm seeing online and people saying a new rack fixes the issue, I'm tempted to skip the dealer and go straight to the repair from the guy I regularly go to.

My GS is a 2013 AWD, no lane keep.

 

Just in case I would go to techstream and do the zero point calibration , which says should be done after each alignment anyway

 

It appears that you are describing two different issues.

Issue 1 - Your steering wheel is not perfectly centered to drive straight down the highway. This could be due to a number of things - alignment, road crown, worn bushings/tie-rod ends. Lift the car and check for play in the suspension, front and rear. Double-check the alignment at a different shop - alignment racks need to be calibrated every 6 months, and many shops refuse to pay for it, instead just letting the alignment rack wander out of spec, so they may be putting an alignment on your car that appears to be dead-nuts perfect on the screen but is actually significantly out of spec. For a while I had a good relationship with a manager at a local tire shop who would call me after the Hunter tech had been there to calibrate the rack so I would be getting the most accurate alignment.

Issue 2 - The steering wheel catch - I have experienced this for years on our IS350 AWD, so much so that we just drive around it now. That car has over 100k miles on it now, and had behaved that way since delivery in 2013. It feels as though the EPAS occasionally goes to sleep at speed on the highway and wakes up again after make an input, forcing you to use much more initial effort to turn it off center. This is a known issue on this forum that, to my understanding, has never been acknowledged by Lexus.