Power Steering fluid

[meep]

I earned the T-shirt. I ran non-Honda fluid in a gen-1 mdx. Probably amsoil atf because it’s robust. Over 3 years the internal friction in the rack completely disappeared. I didn’t even realize the rack had such a thing, but realized it once it did not - kind of an internal friction element like a steering damper on a 4x4. It made the steering very loose or vague when going over rough patches. It never developed any leaks. I did buy the rack tool to tighten the friction member, but there was no more to tighten. We drove the car anyway - it was over 100k and it had been hit twice by others, long in the tooth, but yes I believe that the cause of the problem was from using non-Honda fluid in it.