Your steering system consists of a series of components (links and gears) that connect the driver from the steering wheel to the wheels. There are two types of steering systems your vehicle may use - parallelogram and rack-and-pinion.
Today most vehicles also have some power assistance such as variable effort steering to help with parking at low speeds and electronic power steering.
The parallelogram steering system consists a steering gearbox, pitman arm, relay arm and inner and outer tie rod-ends. This type of system is used on most rear wheel drive cars.
The rack-and-pinion system eliminates the pitman arm, relay rod and idler arm and is therefore lighter. This system is ideally suited to front wheel drive vehicles. This gives the driver a better feeling of the road, but it can also mean greater noise and vibration may be felt.
If your vehicle is hard to steer, if there is excessive steering wheel free-play or if you feel a vibration or jerking sensation in the steering wheel, a Minute Muffler and Brake steering specialist will help diagnose the problem.