Poor centering of steering wheel after slight movement

[Tore]

Hi from Norway Spartane and thanks for your interesting comments!
To day I was visiting the dealer to explain about this phenomenon and the garage manager took my car for a drive. He also noticed this poor centering issue but after a test drive with the company`s demo car, we both concluded that this car also suffered from a similar behaviour. So, the garage manager believed this to be a "normal" behaviour for this car model. However, I am not satisfied with this conclusion, as on other Toyota cars with EPS I have not noticed this problem. So, I will talk to the distributor`s technical dept. and see if they have any TSB from Toyota in Japan as for reprogramming of the EPS system. The behaviour is very annoying when driving straight forward on the freeway.
Maybe more of you guys with 3 gen. Prius could check out this when cruising on the freeway in the times to come....

[bedrock8x]

It has nothing to do with the EPS, self centering force comes from the caster angle of the front wheels. If you have ridden a bike or bicycle, you know what I mean.
Toyota cars are mostly using McPherson strut suspension like in the Prius, which limits the amount of caster can be dial in without sacrificing cornering force. This is why for good handling cars they always have double wishbone suspension.
I suspect the Toyota you claim to have good centering may have double wishbone suspension (some European version may have a different suspension setup then the US version) or it is a Lexus.

Originally Posted by Tore

Hi from Norway Spartane and thanks for your interesting comments!
To day I was visiting the dealer to explain about this phenomenon and the garage manager took my car for a drive. He also noticed this poor centering issue but after a test drive with the company`s demo car, we both concluded that this car also suffered from a similar behaviour. So, the garage manager believed this to be a "normal" behaviour for this car model. However, I am not satisfied with this conclusion, as on other Toyota cars with EPS I have not noticed this problem. So, I will talk to the distributor`s technical dept. and see if they have any TSB from Toyota in Japan as for reprogramming of the EPS system. The behaviour is very annoying when driving straight forward on the freeway.
Maybe more of you guys with 3 gen. Prius could check out this when cruising on the freeway in the times to come....

[patsparks]

Prius steering does feel different to most cars. You get used to it.
As others have said, check your wheel alignment.