[NoSole]

I wasn’t really sure where to post this since there isn’t a steering section. So since my car is an ‘08 335xi, I figured this is as good a place as any. Anywhosers....

I just finished replacing my oil pan gasket and both front axles, and it was a muther! Now that the car is reassembled, I noticed initially that my steering wheel was very slightly out of alignment when driving straight. Additionally, when I parked it last night, as I was backing into a spot and doing a multipoint turn, at one point the steering wheel went way out of alignment (about 60 degrees counter clockwise) while my wheels were straight. Not really knowing what else to do, I pulled the steering wheel hard right quickly, and that sorta put it roughly back to straight. It was late, and dark, so I haven’t had a chance to poke around, but I’m going to crawl underneath it now and see if something looks amiss. I thought I’d get a thread going first in case anyone has some insight.

Additional info:
When changing my oil pan gasket, while I did disconnect the rack and fluid line supports from the subframe and the steering pump from the oil pan, I didn’t actually disconnect any of the splines, fluid lines, or components in series. What I mean is, the steering system was free from its mounts, but remained fully intact. The only thing I did remove that might influence this was the pinch bolt on the lower end of the u-joint on the column, however, I didn’t actually pull apart the u-joint or any part of the column. I also replaced the pinch bolt (in good alignment) shortly after when I realized I didn’t actually need to do that. I’m a bit baffled why why the steering is acting this way.