2003 Camry: Grinding or binding noise when turning steering wheel

[JackWildfeuer]

From your description it sounds to me like a quite possibly a bad steering shaft joint if not a strut bearing. A common ailment in some cars.

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If you need an intermediate steering shaft do not get the a Chinese one. I got one during Covid-19 because they where unavailbe from Toyota. It works but not like it should. You can get them from Toyota again. I got my Geniune Toyota part from Toyotapartsdeal.com eventualy for like 1/2 or less what local Toyota dealership wanted.

Mine did not make any noise when it went bad though. The symptom I had was the wheels would not self straigten after a turn I had to manual return my wheel to center after every turn.

 

[JackWildfeuer]

If you do it yourself you will need to jack the car up and remove the drivers wheel and the plastic splash shield in the wheel arch. You will need to put the window down striaghtent he steering wheel and tape it to the paint outside of the window to keep it straight. You will end up working under the car, top of the car, through the wheel well and inside under the dash. It is not a hard job to do but you have to think ahead and be patient. Each nut is hard to get too but that is normal!