The Car:

2016 Camry XSE V6 2GR-FE, U660E auto transmission, 80k miles, transfluid drained and refilled @ 60k, all other routine maintenance performed by the book for the most part.

The issue: 

The car wanders on the highway and constantly requires a little bit of input to keep it between the lines and I cannot figure out why, steering feels tight but you can tell that there is just a little bit of slop/play that has to be taken up somewhere before the car will actually start responding to me correcting its path with the steering wheel. It's driving me crazy.

 

Here's what I've done so far to track down the issue:

No huge potholes have been hit at least in the last 40k miles that I've owned the car. No shaking of any sort from the wheel, the seat, or the rest car at any speed (tested to 130 MPH...on a track and DEFINITELY not an open highway in the middle of nowhere without cell phone service). Alignment was checked at Firestone and is well within spec, nearly dead center on tolerances across the board. I put a new set of tires on about 8k miles ago, the old set was evenly warn all around. The issue persisted before and after the new set of tires. No evidence of worn ball joints, tie-rods, or wheel bearings on the front; both front wheels are solid when I give them a shake while holding them at 12 and 6 as well as at 3 and 9 with the car off the ground. Literally, the only other steering related symptom I've had is the intermediate steering shaft clunking due to lack of grease. I disconnected the intermediate steering shaft and re-greased it and the clunk is gone but the wandering issue persists. Should I just go ahead and replace the intermediate steering shaft? My thinking was that if the shaft ever clunked at all, that means it's got some play in it...and the regreasing is masking it at best. Do you have any ideas of anything else I can test? Could the rear tires be causing this somehow? I feel comfortable replacing the whole steering rack on my own if I need to (especially since there's no hydraulic power steering lines to fool with!), I just want to point my effort and my money at the right place so that I don't end up replacing things that don't need replacing.

 

Also, while I have your attention Scotty, I've been watching you for a few years and was really sad to see you leave Houston but I am happy to see Tennessee welcoming you with open arms. I just wanted to encourage you to keep doing what you're doing. There is an ever decreasing number of folks out there with integrity like yours and it's just refreshing every time I get to watch your videos and see you put your truth out there. In my personal life, the folks that I value the most are the ones that will tell me the truth even if it's abrasive and not what I want to hear. We need more folks like you Scotty, keep up the good work.

 

Thanks a whole bunch,

Stephen