2005 Prius Steering heavy

my 2005 Prius suffers from heavy steering, however It only happens at a very specific point when turning the wheel.
if i turn the wheel a quarter turn to the right it becomes heavy and will not self centre, i have jacked the car up and nothing appears to be loose, tyre wear is consistant and there are no noises or error messages that indicate something is wrong.
I had the steering recall done about 3 months ago, it is only the last week or so that this seems to have started.

thanks in advance

 

thanks for the replies guys.

She has 93K on her, its used as a taxi and i am generally careful with kerbs ect as its my own car and time off the road is money not being earned.

I jacked the car up on the weekend and did some pulling and pushing, nothing appears to be loose or damaged, there was no excessive movement in the road wheel when pulling it about.

It only goes 'tight' when its self-centering from a right handed turn, it goes very tight when the wheel spokes are at the 12 0'clock/6 o'clock position, just before the road wheels are central, at this point it stops self-centering and given the chance the car would just carry on going round in a circle, you have to steer it back to centre.

Im beginning to suspect the rack assembly, i wonder if the pinion has taken a knock in the past and this has caused this, i bought the car second hand and on close inspection there's evidence of a front end respray (overspray on wiring)

 

I didnt check it with the car off, however if i turn the steering when the car is stationary and switched on it feels no different, but the moment the car is on the move it does feel different.

Yes, steering rack=steering gear, it is the same spot and same feeling each time.

thanks for your input

 

we finally got to the bottom of the issue.

It was the steering gear, it was totally shot. All due to water ingress.

We checked the boots and they were sealed and were strapped to the body of the steering gear securely, we only found out about the water when we undid the boots and it flowed out freely!! All brown and rusty and full of metal shards, we believe this to be a bearing that was seizing due to water ingress (that would have caused the initial stiffness) once it got too bad the bearing collapsed and the stiffness disappeared, from there the gear developed a lot of freeplay and displayed signs of track rod end ball joint failure.

About 6 months ago Toyota carried out the steering knuckle recall on the car, the garage who fixed it have guessed that they have not installed the rubber boot that sits between the steering rack and firewall of the car, as a result the water has got in and damaged the steering gear.

I spoke to Toyota about this, they said i couldn't prove they had caused it, my reply was they couldn't prove they didn't cause it!! So we had a deadlock and i was out of pocket for a new steering gear.

It hasnt put me off the car but has soured my view of Toyota main dealers