I had my car repaired for a few weeks, and I'm not sure if I just forgot what it feels like, but the steering wheel feels a lot stiffer and harder to turn at a stop or low speeds.

I tried turning the wheel with the car off and keys in, and it feels super hard as it should. When the car is on, it is a lot easier than no power steering, but it feels difficult to move.

Letting go of the steering wheel when turning and while the car is stopped, the steering wheel sort of bounces back and forth until it settles at a position.

Is this normal and I'm just not used to it from driving a rental Ford Focus for a week?

There are no lights on the dash and the car drives fine otherwise. The car is an AP1 btw.

 

Sounds like the start of torque sensor issues.

Ok, I'm gonna show you how to bring back the torque sensor. You'll need some dexoit d5, one with lubricant in it, and some spray lithium grease, and a touch of paste grease.

Pull up the boot on the tq sensor, you'll see a rubber dust seal under the boot. Carefully use a pick or some other thin object to lift up the grease seal, and put the little tube just past the seal. Don't stuff anything deep inside the unit. Then liberally spray the dexoit in the unit. If you removed the tq sensor to do this turn the shaft on the sensor as you spray. If it's still in the car just put a pan underneath and empty the can just to make sure it cycled through the nooks and crannies of the unit. Then spray some lithium grease until it just starts coming out of the unit. Then finally use paste grease on the outside of the seal and under the dust boot. This will keep dust and moisture from getting in the unit which is causing your issue. Then just grease yearly like it says to in the manual and you shouldn't have any issue.

To remove the tq sensor, there's 2 12mm bolts and 2 10mm bolts on the coupler and an electrical connection. Mark the coupler with liquid paper so you can reattach it exactly as you removed it. Note the orientation of the torque sensor or you'll have to adjust that big ass nut on the rack to get the sensor back in.

Install is opposite of removal, Google the tq sensor calibration procedure and you should be good to go.

 

Thank you so much for the detailed post!

 

I experienced the exact same sensation once. I pulled out the instrument cluster to send it to my buddy to have it converted to LED. I was tempted to drive the car with the cluster removed lol, and when I did the steering was exactly how you described it. I thought it was just in my head as it had been a while between drives. But once my cluster came back and I installed it, the steering assist greatly increased again to original levels. It turned out that the eps system has some connection to the instrument cluster. Not likely your issue but I thought I'd share how I had the same sensation as you describe.