ok so after the manual trans query.

What is with vehicles made for the US market having such overdone unresponsive power steering?

eg.. Toyota Supra... these things feel terrible, they have nowhere near enough feedback for a sports car and are somewhat like driving a boat! not only that but the excessive load on the power steering can overheat it. that's great!

Subaru WRX. When it was made for outside the US there was less power assis and less turns lock to lock making for faster more responsive steering and better feedback. Subaru felt this needed to be fixed for the US market. and they stuffed it.

Its mainly cultural. The same reason in the 70s while we were making cars as big as we could, european and japanese car makers were making them smaller because they're roads are smaller. Its the same reason we were all obsessed with power and straight line performance in the 60s and early 70s and they were more concerned about handling and modest hp. Its just what the market finds important.

Power steering was also just something that didn't catch on quite as well. Power steering wasn't a hot ticket, but low cost and easy maintenance was.

Now the Americans who are coming out of the 70s and 80s where cars were all about way too much power steering for a luxury feel, and the Foreign market coming out of years of no power steering, are slowly meeting in the middle. Neither is wrong, just different.

see thats odd too though, cause with europe and japans "smaller" more curvy roads... i'd expect them to be the ones to use power steering. Euro cars especially have led the world in so many areas of comfort and handling, and low cost doesn't exactly explain why a BMW has more feel. It's a shame to rob good cars of steering response and ability. Great point about car size though... the sheer bulk of US vehicles through that period would demand bulk power steering input.

there are also cases where the suspension is changed between the european market and the US market; best example being the ford focus ST170 which famously got "soft" as it crossed the atlantic.

small curvy roads don't neccessarily mean that it needs (or needs more) power assistance.

power steering doesn't always point to soft and wobbly steering. Bad steering set-up is bad steering whether or not it has power assistance. Even in the case of PAS, there are again, like gearboxes, several systems of power assistance with the variable assistance and it's set-up being particularly difficult to get right.

hmmm... cars like the WRX though which had really sharp steering developed through years of manufacture and refinement.... then they throw it all out and overdo the power assist on ALL markets cause they put it into the US market?

no offence but you are verging on blaming the US car market for making good non-US cars bad.

did they ruin the WRX?
not having driven one example, let alone all examples (to make a fair comparison) i cannot say but people who have still cite it as being one of the best, in UK terms, A to B cars on the market.

not all the time lol... making the AC Ace into the Shelby Cobra for example was brilliant...

I just don't get why you'd essentially de-performance a performance vehicle. The car had obviously earned it's place and had a formula that worked... i could understand if, like the focus, they made a us version for us tastes... hang on i'm off topic... i don't understand why US tastes don't include responsiveness in areas like handling. I guess that's my point. lol I don't mean to sound like i'm bashing US tastes... i just don't understand them... you either want a car that handles or you don't.... if you don't don't get a foreign performance car cause that's what they do.

because again, it's not that simple.
you mentioned that road conditions are different and the simple fact is, cars are tuned and developed on one type of road and they try their best to make that set-up work for as many places as possible. That, as the varied conditions that exist around the world means, is next to impossible.

who's to say that a non-altered car made for european/japanese roads would actually be better on US roads? Like i said, bad steering set up is bad no matter who did it or where it came from and it isn't unique to US cars. it's just that the truism that US cars have sloppy steering as you put it, is a popular thing to comment on.
As i also said, it isn't all down to power assistance.
Simple bad gearing of the steering can lead to bad feel and even other wise sharp handling can be 'ruined' in order to fix a slight problem; S1 Tuscan and Honda Civic type-r being examples of both respectively. In the TVR, the steering is a bit slow to react at small turns of the wheel and all of a sudden, the gearing jumps up and the next thing you know, you've turned maybe more than you expected. At the time, the suspension was also slightly softer than the previous models (specifically the griffith and more importantly, cerbera) and added to the slow/sudden sharp steering, gave the car a very odd and nervous feel. Not good.
In the case of the Civic Type-R, the steering is famous for having a bit of a dead spot when pointing straight ahead. This was engineered into the steering to quell a bit of the torque steer, something that it it does actually do very well. Unfortuneately, it results in well, that dead spot where you steer and nothing happens.

both cases are examples of flaws in steering set-ups and both for different reasons. In the TVR, it was a flaw that they quickly fixed. In the Civic, it was deliberate to make the car, as a whole, better.
incidentally, neither car was made specifically for or altered for the US market.

mmm the torque steer in the integra type R is pretty scary so i can understand that in the civic. The WRX had been in production for around 10 years though, in various guises, before it went stateside... in trying to get it accepted for the us market they gave it more turns lock to lock and more power assist... equating to less feel but easier parking... i don't blame the US market, i just wonder if the car companies gave the market the opportunity to drive the vehicles with harder suspension (focus) and sharper steering (wrx) perhaps the market would actually like it? i know i love how direct my MR2 is and i HATED driving a supra cause it had no responsiveness or feedback...

well the thing with the integra was that they put a very good quaife unit in there which did a very good job of the whole torque steer issue.
for the civic, however, this would've put the car in the wrong price range (at least £18,000 in the UK) which was the main reason that they went with the compromise of dead steering on the straight ahead.

as for the other two (impreza and supra) i have no idea of what they did to the cars, let alone what was done for the US market versions.