I have a 99 Camry, manual trans. I just had the engine replaced, and now the steering wheel is off almost 30 degrees to the left. Also, the steering wheel turns one way a little more than the other way. The car drives straight down the road, otherwise.

All I know is that the shop said they would have to take the clutch out. Did they take off the subframe and not align it when they put it back on?

Any ideas on what's wrong and what I can do to fix the problem? Thanks for your help.

Is an alignment going to fix this problem? [&:]

BTW, the shop claims it's not their fault, even though I told them the problem was not there before.

 

During the process of removing the trans the tie rod ends were disconnected. The shop may have somehow allowed them to become out of adjustment resulting in the steering being off. The rod ends screw onto the steering rod and are adjustable.

Or they may have removed the steering housing containing the rack and pinion. When reinstalling they may have not positioned the steering console shaft back in the exact same location.

An alignment/repair shop should be able to find the problem and restore the steering to normal.

The trans shop should have reinstalled the parts correctly to prevent this, they might not be able to get it exact but should have gotten a LOT closer then this.

 

toyomoho, thank you for the quick and knowledgeable answer.

Just a quick follow up question... I did some research and was afraid that it would be the second problem (removed the steering housing containing the rack and pinion). Is this a quick fix or something that would require extensive disassembly? And is this something a good alignment would usually fix?

Thanks again.

 

Not sure how quick the fix would be.

If it was the steering U-joint being installed in the wrong position the steering column may need to be pulled up to get the U-joint off the steering housing shaft. This would normally not be done in a typical alignment job.

The tie rod ends have some adjustment but this may not be enough.

 

Thank you!

I plan to keep and mod my Camry when I have the time and I'm glad there is a forum like this and helpful people out there.

 

Glad to help!