Dry steering is the act of turning the steering wheel or rotating the steer wheels of a vehicle on the Z axis by some other means, while the vehicle is stationary.
This action puts strain on the rack and pinion, pump, tie rods, and bearings, especially causes undue wear to the steer wheels, and can be exceptionally difficult in the absence of power-assisted steering. Although in most modern cars the steering components are sturdy enough to handle dry steering without taking damage, it is still not recommended due to stronger tire wear. This is the reason why automatic parking systems are usually designed not to dry steer, although their design would be somewhat simpler if they used dry steering.
Famous quotes containing the words dry and/or steering:
“All cries are thin and terse;
The field has droned the summer’s final mass;
A cricket like a dwindled hearse
Crawls from the dry grass.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
“In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round,—for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost,—do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)