[540guy]

My wife has been driving my 2011 328iX all winter and never told me that there is now a lot of sloppiness in the steering.

When the steering when is centered, there is at least 5 degrees left & right movement (probably more) before any resistance is felt when turning the wheel. It never was like that before. Car used to feel like it was on rails. I installed new Pirelli Sottozero winter tires this year, rebalanced the wheels and did an alignment before the start of the winter. It all felt good to me, before I handed the car to my wife (no, not her fault).

If I take the car on the highway and get into a long constant radius sweeping turn, the steering is 'tight' and behaves as I'd expect when it's under load like that - once the initial 'slop' is absorbed at the beginning of the curve. When driving straight, the 'slop' is always present, at low or high speeds.

The roads around here have been pretty badly beaten up with potholes this past year, so I'm thinking that may be what triggered this. But I don't know my way around steering components, and what to look for as possible things to fix.

The car has just under 85K miles on it.
Any pointers/suggestions of what to look for/replace are appreciated.

Thanks

[Brian86]

The lower cardan joint in the steering column.

It has a screw which pinches the split shaft couplers down over the splined shafts on either side. They have a tendency to come loose. Seems more prevalent on 4wd cars.

Should be able to access it with the air box removed. I bought a slightly longer screw and installed a jamb nut on the opposite side (it's tapped through) to prevent it from happening again.