I'm working on an investigation at NHTSA. Has anyone had problems with steering loss in their truck?

 

I have had a strange problem with mine?? If I make a sharp turn in one direction and then back the other way too quickly, the steering gets tougher for some reason.(hard to turn the wheel) It feels like the p/s pump can't keep up with demand? I've never heard anyone else mention it, so I thought it may only be a problem on mine. Is this what your talking about, or a complete failure of the coupler?,,,,98

 

Screamer, the problem you are describing was also an issue with the Crown Vic police cruisers. I never did follow up on it though. Maybe Coop is aware of that one??

 

I guess it could actually be a safety issue If I really needed to make that maneuver to avoid an accident? Thankfully I never have Coop, did you know about this one? Just curious.,,,,98

 

Truck is a 97 F150 4x4 longbed with 141K.
I haven't had complete loss of steering but I do feel a bump bump bump feeling in the steering wheel when making turns. It feels tight and solid over bumps and even feels fairly tight over bumps in turns, just a constant bump bump feeling in steering.
It was actually a Ford tech that pointed it out to me, and based just on a road test he said it felt like the lower steering shaft.
I will point out that I have new balljoints w/ alignment (less than 1K old), hub bearings, shocks, rotors, pads steering stabalizer, and tires are all less than 15K old. The feeling has got a little worse since the two months ago when the tech test drove it for another problem.
I'm not for sure it's the steering shaft but other than the cv joints, tie rods (good shape according to mechanic), or an idler arm everything is new. I guess it's possiable that one of the fairly new hub's is bad.
What's everyone input on this?