Strange steering feel lately
 

I have almost 25k on the car now and for the past 500 miles Ive been feeling a weird sensation in the steering. On a nice sweeping right hand turn the handling feels decent, however, if theres a decreasing radius at the end of the turn and I move the steering wheel that much further, it feels like the wheels are going to fall under themselves. Mind you, this is not pushing it very hard. Pushing it hard and the car feels like its going to understeer very early. Im down 10mph on off ramps so I can tell something is wrong.

Something feels weird when just going straight too. If I wiggle the steering wheel on the highway it feels like its pushing against me and then goes away. It has a way more digital feel now than a smooth transition from straight to turning. Does this make sense? Im wondering if the steering rack is going bad or some electric relay.

Anyone else feel this?

What tires do you have on your car? With your listed performance mods I am assuming you are not running all-seasons--so if you're on OEM summers then my first thought is that at ~25K you are getting near the end of their useful life and that combined with the lower temps as we start to enter autumn means handling is just starting to get a little squirrely.

(To be fair I am also assuming that if you're running summers in NJ that you also fit winters for a few months a year, but how many miles are actually on these specific tires? Anything over 15,000mi on a 280 treadwear summer with your not-insignificant mod list is pretty good, IMO.)

See this thread for some relevant discussion on tire life: https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a4-...-last-2960140/

Just an idea. Nothing else comes immediately to mind except alignment, but you'd probably know if your alignment was off.

Still running original All Seasons. Have about 40% tread left on them. All my miles are mostly highway miles. Tracking at speed is dead straight if I let go of the wheel, so no alignment issues. Its only when I start turning the steering wheel, the electronic feedback is wonky.

How are your tire pressures?

35 front 33 rear...check it every 2 weeks or 10 degrees of temp change....yes, Im OCD like that.

I have been wondering if Audi finally learned how to build electrically assisted power steering or if also B9 will be affected by step wise varying assistance that some describes as a click-click feel. My B8.5 took a while to develop it and many B8.5 have it to some degree from time to time. Do think this is similar to your problem? Mine was largely corrected under warranty but at some occasions it's there.
Your sensation of "wheels falling under themselves" is not clear to me what you mean. Does it feel like a to low or negative caster angle, like the car turning the steering wheel to a sharper turn by itself? If the physical wheel angles have not changed perhaps a sudden increase of the steering power assistance can create such a feel?

Yes, thats it! Its like the steering gets overly boosted at a certain point and the steering gets very light instead of staying stiff(everything is always in dynamic setting for me). So thats the feeling Im getting.

Is lane assist turned on in the MMI car settings?

Nope, dont have that option in my car. Its definitely something in the power steering.

So, interestingly enough, while on the way to work today I decided to play around with the drive select. I started flipping through the different settings and once I put it back on Dynamic, the steering felt linear again and solid throughout the turn. Maybe it was an electrical glitch or something.