03 mustang gt convertible. When I turn the wheels to make a left or right turn, also the tighter the turn the worse it is. I have to physically return the steering wheel to center. It will not return itself..
So if I would make a left turn and not touch the wheel I would just keep going in circles..

If I'm driving down the highway you can kind of feel a "float" in the steering wheel. With a very occasional like someone took a hammer and tapped once on the steering column. And even if you just bump the wheel slightly to merge lanes it has to be returned to center.
If I step on the brake at night way speeds it wants to pull itself to the passenger side then when you let go of the brake I tried to overcorrect itself by veering off the driver side.

Things that were replaced over the course of the last 2 years roughly not having anything to do with the above problem just stuff that wore out and needed replaced
2 inner tie rods replace
2 outer tie rods replace
2 ball joints replaced.
2 front wheel bearings replaced
Also had 2 alignments done
i replaced the front caliper hoses in Hope's it would correct the braking issue but did not.
I dont feel any play in the wheel bearings or tie rods or anything.
any clues here fellas??

 

Silly question, but how does the power steering fluid look?

 

its full, not clear but not all dark and burnt either. I flushed it and filled with all new about 2 years ago

 

When did this start happening? Hit a curb or pothole? What brings the wheel back to center is the caster adjustment. Something that the factory doesn't have as an option to adjust. Your Camber/Toe can be correct but caster can be way off.

Do you have any printouts of your last alignment you can post? That will let us quickly see if anything seems odd.

 

Oh hell, it started to happen around beginning of September when I would turn the wheel I would feel a little thump in the wheel and noticed the car would wonder a lil bit. I had new tires put on which seemed the help the wondering but the occasional thump was still there the last 3 weeks I noticed hey my steering wheel seems like it's been sticking going around bends and the last 2 weeks it's been so bad. Steering feels stiff. Not like a power steering loss but like something is definitely sticking or binding. I noticed when driving I hear alot of squeaking from driver side wheel. So I'm wondering if it isn't control arm bushings that would be the source of all of this???.

But no, I haven't hit any curbs, holes or anything that would make feel like damn that probably broke something. I'll take a look for the alignment papers

 

Jack the front of the car up on both sides. Give a spin to each wheel but pay close attention to the drivers side. It should turn without any resistance or very little. If you're not sure, compare the passenger side to the drivers side in terms of how easily it spins and how far the wheel goes around compared to the other side when you give it a spin. Could be a bearing although I've never heard of thumping like you describe.

If either wheel has a ton of resistance, bad wheel bearing

Inspect both pairs of brake pads. they should be worn evenly inner/outer and they should be comparable passenger/drivers side. If the outboard pad is worn on either side, the slide pins aren't sliding on that side of the car, If the inboard pad is worn on either side, the caliper piston is sticking on that side of the car. If both the inboard and outboard side of a caliper pad is worn a lot compared to the other caliper. The caliper with ,more wear is frozen. Worn down pads will cause squealing. the thumping could've been from when caliper pins would unstick themselves.

If it's neither of those, now you're looking at the rack and pinion assembly being bad. Caster will help straighten the wheel but without power assist, it will take manual help.

 

I appreciate it. Brake pads seem to be worn evenly on both sides, and the wheels seems to turn freely about the same. However I did find something I noticed the driver side balljoint wasn't fully seated.. maybe about 1/8 of inch gap between the a-arm and bottom of the joint. So I decided to undo the spindle and strut and once I took tension of the joint the balljoint just fell straight out. I can literally press a new one in by hand. So that hole stretched out pretty bad. I ordered a new control arm and I'll be putting that in sometime in the next couple days and re-evaluate if the problem is still there or not

 

Update: new control arm is in, once the spindle and everything was off the old arm I just tapped the top of the balljoint with my palm and it fell right out.
I noticed coil spring was broken about half inch off where it starts into the bottom isolator.
I ordered new lowering springs and isolators. Right off the bat that clunking is gone, alignment is way off now for not even touching the tie rod ends.
steering is still tight and still will not return itself, so I'm going on a hunch that new springs isolators and and alignment will make a world of difference

 

Sounds like you're on the right path.

The spring itself was broken? Definitely get an alignment after you replace them and let us know how it goes.

 

Update again. Front coil springs are in, everything is pretty much back to normal. The alignment is off of course that was to be expected, but the difference is night and day. The steering wheel actually returns itself and the pulling to the left side is gone when braking. The passenger side spring was actually the worse. It was broke off a full coil and the driver side spring was broken off about a half coil. It was so bad the the 1 1/2 lowering springs I put in barely lowered the car anymore than what it was. I hope this helps anyone who ever comes across this sort of issue.