99 SL is hard to steer

I havent hit anything, but I have noticed that my car is hard to steer. It is best described as stiff steering. If you turn out from a road or driveway and let go of the steering wheel it will stay, I have to turn it back to straight position. It is manual steering and the car has a little over 120000 miles on it. Any ideas? I looked under the car and cant see any visible worn or damaged parts. I havent had a front end alignment in years but the car runs straight and it doesnt wear out the tires unevenly. I looked through some other literature and found it may be the front end parts are wearing out. Has anyone had similar problems?

Here's what I would do:

Jack up the front and test the steering. With no weight, it should steer easily. If its still stiff, I would take loose a tie rod end and see if it gets easier to turn, if not, take the other end loose and test again. If its still hard to turn, you have a bad rack and pinion if it's really easy to turn, you probably have bad ball joints, or bad strut bearing plates. It's a process of elimination. The tie rod ends are the easiest to check. Seems like something has worn out and is tightening up.

Thanks, I will do that as soon as I have the weather and time.

I have been driving the car daily and today when i made turns it was as if there was gravel in the steering column. Is there bearings in the column?

dead rack? never known anyone to replace a rack, but sounds like maybe something is up with yours.