Dry Steering

Tube

Yes I know it's a really bad idea. But how bad? I got a friend of mine to do a really horrific bit of parking today (seriously after seeing this I'm pretty sure he could be a stunt driver), but he dry steered. A lot. I think that the steering now feels lighter, but I could just be imagining it. Can one instance of dry steering significantly fuck things up?

OremLK

While I have no clue about the mechanical stuff involved, based on past experience, I would say you're just imagining it; I've done a fair amount of dry steering and never noticed problems on my vehicles.

I could just be an idiot though.

Pheezer

After one day's worth of, I highly, highly doubt it could possibly have any significant effect unless it was already pretty close to falling apart anyhow.

It's one of those things you'd never want to ever make a habit of doing, but you won't ruin an otherwise fine power steering system by only doing it for one day.

Fats

I dunno how I'd park the dakota without dry steering, haven't burnt anything up yet.

Edit: Hell, you bleed a new power steering pump by dry steering the air out of it.

fuelish

You mean turning the steering wheels while the car is stationary? If a car cannot handle that imagine what happens when you hit a pot hole on the outside wheel in a hard turn.
It might increase wear a little but so do lots of of ther things(driving in the rain, driving on dirt roads, driving on rough roads, slamming the door, running the wipers when the glass is dry......)

Seattle Thread

Dogg, myself and everyone I know dry steers like a motherfucker. I didn't even know there was a term for it or that it was anything out of the ordinary until this post. And none of us have ever had any unusual steering-related car troubles.

Lewisham

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_steering

Wikipedia says "undue wear" but I don't think you're going to notice anything after one time.

Blake T

It's not going to make the car fall apart imediately.

It shouldn't be done though, I mean you can just creep forward and turn the wheel and it removes the majority of the stress involved.

Iroh

The steering linkages are all built to withstand a lot more of a beating than any dry steering you can do. Like everyone else has said, you're just going to get a little bit of tread wear. Not that you'll be going through tires like crazy, either.

Midshipman

I can't imagine parking without dry steering. You can get into much smaller spots that way.