Why do I have such sloppy steering?

1968FormulaS340 said

no

Take the car to a tire shop or local mechanic and have a front end inspection done. Many will do it for free (watch if you can it will teach you what to look for).

Some things are easy to replace yourself. A full rebuild is always nice but nothing is really wrong with simply replacing the parts that are bad when you are on a budget.

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I agree. Put the front of the car on jackstands and find out what's bad. Look and inspect the bushings. Grab the sides wheel and move them back and forth while watching the tie rods, pitman, and idler arm. Then grab the top and bottom of wheel and move and see or feel if you have movement. Grab each ends of the tie rod and feel/look for movement. Same for both end of the centerlink to check pitman and idler.

Typically the driver side lower control arm bushing gets wiped out from leaking power steering fluid and idler arm wears.