I'm currently having issues with my steering as it's quite stiff at certain points of turning the wheel. I do know that I have some power steering fluid in my right inner tie rod boot but the fluid in the reservoir doesn't decrease. I may have stopped the leakage from using a bottle of Lucas PS additives. My PS fluid seems dirty after changing it but could that be the reason why it's resulting in stiff steering?

 

I just had to replace my steering shaft u joint because it was so seized up. That's a common source of stiff steering. It was so bad that once I removed it, it cannot be moved by hand. The only reason it would rotate is all the leverage you get from the steering wheel and obviously the power assist. The u joint itself wouldn't rotate on either axis by hand.

 

Take some penetrating oil and spray the bejesus out of the steering shaft u-joint that connects to the steering rack. That's probably why your steering is stiff.

 

Wow spraying a boat load of WD-40 actually worked to loosen up the stiffness. Is this only a temporarily fix to the stiffness?

 

I would assume it's temporary. That stuff will dry up or drip away eventually. It's not like grease that will stay in there. Drive it and see how long it takes to get stiff again and decide if it's easier for you to deal with it by spraying it periodically or fixing it. I drove mine with it stiff as hell for about a year but it finally got too bad to where it was sketchy to drive and I only realized how sketchy it was when I loaned the car to someone else and they looked at me like I was crazy. But I was so used to it that I didn't think that much about it. Also remember this is your steering we're talking about..... I'm not saying this will fail catastrophically without warning but if it binds up on you at the wrong time it's not good.

 

It's temporary yeah but you only have to respray the u-joint about every 6 months or so it mostly depends on how much wet weather you get. Where I live in the Dry-Shitties you would only need to spray it once per year, other side of the Cascade mountains you would probably need to do it every 3-4 months.

Those u-joints are really stout, I wouldn't be too concerned with them just catastrophically failing but they're also not difficult to replace, just be absolutely sure you make match marks so you get the new one installed in EXACTLY the same orientation or you'll end up with a steering angle sensor problem.

I'd personally drive on it for another year without losing any sleep over it, just replace it in the future when it's convenient. Factory part is like $150, takes about about 30 minutes to replace it if you have the right tools.