Hello guys, I recently purchased a 2008 G37s coupe and this is my first post, so nice to be part of the community. On the test drive, I realized the steering gets hard to turn for like an inch around half way through each side but its normal to steer once you force beyond that point. The car was lowered on coilovers and had 18 inch aftermarket wheels, so I assumed it was just a rubbing issue. Later, I put spacers on the front and raised the car, but it still had the problem, so I'm not sure anymore. The car also has an aftermarket steering wheel and hub, and Megan headers if any of you think thats relevant. It also came with a broken clockspring, which I replaced myself and I'm also positive that I centered the new one prior to installing, only for it to go bad around 2 days laters (again, don't know if this is relevant to the issue, just some more info for you guys). I'm pretty lost at this point, so any help or advice is appreciated

 

Is the p/s fluid reservoir at proper level (with proper fluid)?
Are you able to turn the wheel without binding with the front wheels off the ground (car off and on)?
How about if you try to turn the actual wheel (left and right) from lock to lock. Feel any biding on either side?
Could be lots of things. Wonder why it has a different steering wheel/hub. Was the car in an accident?

 

P/S fluid is between the min and max. I'm not sure if its the proper fluid, but the pump doesn't seem to be acting up. I jacked the car up, the binding continued around 3/4 of a rotation in each direction, but not at the ends. This happened both while the car was on and was off. I then moved the wheels by hand, and the binding continued, and I noticed the pinion shook a bit when the binding occurred. When the car was off, I also realized there was a scraping noise coming from the steering wheel hub when the binding occured. There's a chance the car might've been in an accident, since the gap between the hood and bumper is ever so slightly off and the gap between the fender and driver door is very off (a reputable body shop told me this was caused by some idiot jacking the car up from a wrong place). Otherwise, the vin has no accidents reported, paint looks oem, and there was no air bag light for the couple days in which the clockspring wasn't broken lol. This is a strange occurrence and all these different factors on my car make it hard to process, so any help is appreciated

 

The fact that it's symmetrical is interesting. Maybe something is misaligned. Maybe the hub is improperly installed?

Unless others have a better idea, I'd probably take it to someone who knows what they're doing. Steering, like brakes is not something to mess with IMO.