I have 102k miles on my 2000 VDP.

History on front suspension:

I replaced the front sway bar bushings, left upper ball joint (it was failing), and the vehicle aligns to spec. I had a damaged steering boot that I fixed with zip ties and my steering system doesn't leak. My tires are balanced.


Current situation:

When turning the wheel slowly from lock to lock to the right, the steering makes a quick squeak noise to the left of center. The noise occurs only at a small specific turn of the wheel. The noise occured on a much larger range of steering motion and was louder after my left upper ball joint began to have free play, and when I first noticed the damaged boot. When I fixed this, the noise was significantly reduced, and occured in a smaller range of the wheel turn. The steering weight is fine at low speeds, but on the highway, the steering gets extremely heavy (I know that the car has speed sensitive steering but the weight on the highway has increased much more than before. My brother who has driven my car for years had a bit of a panic since he thought the power steering went out on the highway due the steering effort change from low to high speeds). The steering hardly centers after a lane change. Finally, under moderate to severe braking, the car feels a bit unstable and the steering suddenly feels vauge (but still very heavy) and the car will drift slightly left or right despite a centered steering wheel.

My upper shock mount bushings are shot, and I need to replace them. However, I wouldnt think it would cause these steering issues? What else could be the culprit? My tire wear is even on both tires and my car was able to be aligned into spec.

Thanks for you help!