Steering Bushing

[Felix_29]

Can anyone tell me the signs of one needing to replace a steering bushing in one of our cars? The negative behaviour?

[Cory W]

Can you grab your (secured) steering wheel and shake it up and down? Can you see where the steering column goes through the front wall? If there's excessive movement there while shaking the steering column, you could use a new bushing.

[Felix_29]

My steering wheel shakes a tiny bit when I am braking at high speeds. It seemed worse when I had the colum in a different position. I wasn't sure if its the colum or its related to perhaps the brakes itself.

[Cory W]

When I first got my car, the bushing was...absent. I noticed an awful lot of up and down shaking, but not nearly as much side-to-side motion. It was all the steering column; it didn't shake or shimmy the wheel like a warped brake rotor, improperly balanced tire, or poor alignment would. If the wheel is turning more than actually moving around, I'd look at those other areas.

[WelmoedJ]

While driving my can from Austin to Houston I lost my steering column bushing.
Could move the steering wheel left to right and up and down.
Not pleasant at highway speeds (I'm Dutch, so usually "highway speed" means up to 80 Mph).

If your steering wheel is shaky while braking and not while driving, most obviously there's something in the braking system you need to check.
Can go from warped rotors to (a bit) stuck brake piston.

If at you first hard brake attempt the car pulls to a specific side, you want to check the caliper and it's brake piston at that side.
A better handling at a directly second brake attempt is almost certainly pointing to a stuck or lazy piston.