Delete your power steering

I only got rid of mine because a line and the rack started leaking simultaneously.

It wasn't great at first because the teeth in the rack and pinion were getting covered in chunky power steering fluid, mixed with water and dirt it would seem. Despite all boots done up tight. That caused wear, and a slight deadzone between switching directions.

But now that I replaced the rack with another that doesn't leak, and removed one simple value from the bolt that holds the line to the rack, wow, next mk4 I own I'm going to delete it right away. It feels great. But maybe I'm just biased by having the muscle memory from the gunky old rack.

I had seen a video years ago about how to modify some internals in the rack to make unpowered use better. But when I needed it I couldn't find that video. However when I was switching my looped lines from one rack to the other I noticed that inside one of those bolts was a one-way valve. I simply broke it off with some needle nose pliers. Very simple, very effective at making parking lot maneuvers much easier.

As an inner city delivery car, not having the pump to spin has gained me at least 1 km per litre of fuel. 55km per tank gives me 2 free commutes per week. (I generally burn 120L per week)

250km per work day, 5 days a week, for 3 and a half years now, original clutch, drives just as nice as the day I bought it 7 years ago. Of course my next car will be another Mk4. I'm not convinced any engine except the 2.slow could handle that.