Hello from Norway to all Prius friends!
I have recently become a proud owner of a 2010 Prius Executive with LED, leather seats and Navi. During my initial testing of the car, I have found a strange behaviour of the "self centering" ? of steering wheel after a small movement especially to the right direction.
It feel`s like the steering rack is somewhat binding ?, or maybe some issue with the EPS system ? However, this is mostly noticeable when turning the wheel very little and then it seems not to go back to center properly. When steering in opposite direction , the self centering works more normal and is centering more correctly.
Today I took my car to the dealer and the garage manager also noticed this when testing my car.
However, after a test drive with the dealer`s demo car, we found a similar behaviour of this vehicle as well, so garage manager believed this to be a "product standard" as he claimed.
I find it hard to believe that this can be a Toyota "standard" as I have not notice this when testing other Toyota models with EPS system, and I canot believe that poor straight forward driving on the motorway will be accepted by the customer. All time you must make corrections of the steering wheel to keep a straight forward line.
The behaviour is almost same when doing high speed ( 50-60 mph) as in lower speed. I just changed from my original Michelin tyres ( 215/45/17 ) into winter tyres ( Conti 5 195/55/16 ) but i felt the similar behaviour before changing tyres.
Anyone else in forum with a similar experience ??

Kind regards from Tore

Hi tore,
What you describe seems weird. I do not have a Gen 3 Prius (mine is Gen 2) but I think the steering wheel should self centre. I have never heard of any cars steering wheel which did not self centre unless there is a fault. See what others say on this forum but if it was my car I would not be too pleased to hear you have to put up with it.
Regards Chris.

Self centering is due the angle of the dampers and steering basic elements (sorry if my technical english is not very good) If you look a motorcicle and see the fork very vertical, this direccion will not self center and the bike has a nervous direccion easy for curves, but if you look to a harley with a big angle in the fork, that will self center. In a car happens the same so if the manufacturer wants a car with a direct and fast direccion to take curves easy the direccion self centers poorly and the opposite for big angles. Also cars with a limited slip differential have poor self centering.

Thanks for your comments and explanations.
Being an automotive engineer with almost 30 years experience from the car business, I agree with your viewpoints. However, this is my first experience with a Prius car, and I find it a bit weird compared to other cars I have driven. I realize that the little Mac Pherson Caster angle will make the car less stable straight forward driving and maybe better in curves, but my point was the fact that the self centering is ok when turning the steering wheel a little to the left side, but poor when turning the same amount to the right side. So this I tried to explain to the Toyota garage manager, but as their demo car proved to have the same symptoms, this had to be a " standard feature" for 2010 Prius he claimed. Though, he admitted little knowledge of the new Prius...
What if the wheel angles are out of spec. on the dealer`s demo car as well as mine ?? VIN no is very close to my VIN... This was my question to the dealer....
The answer is still "blowing in the wind..."

Hi tore.
Did a reasonably long run today in my Prius T Spirit Gen 2. The steering was fine and self centered all the time. I tried to reproduce what you have said your Prius does but no matter how small a turn I did on the steering wheel it self centered.
Hope this helps.
Regards Chris.

Hi Chris and thanks for your testing of the steering abilities of your gen. II Prius and your feedback.
However, as for the gen III Prius, I have not seen any comments relating to this issue, neither in this forum nor in Prius Chat ( US forum). I have posted my requests in PChat but so far no comments from other gen III owners who could verify if this is " production standard" or not.
So I will have to find a different dealer in Oslo area and test one or two other cars next week. Maybe I will figure out more in due time..?