5 Reasons Your Jeep Needs Hydraulic-Assist Steering

• February 21, 2025
• / Story By
  Ali Mansour - Off-Road & Truck Editor
• / Photos By Ali Mansour

Moving up tire sizes will help your Jeep conquer harder trails. However, as the circumference of the tire increases, so does the strain on your power steering. Regardless of what you drive, the combination of larger tires, reduced air-pressure, and differential lockers, will eventually prove to be too much for your factory power steering system. So, what’s the solution?

The most effective way to improve your steering off-road, and increase its responsiveness on-road, is by equipping it with a hydraulic-assist steering kit. These systems work by incorporating a hydraulic cylinder to assist the mechanical steering linkage on your Jeep. This is something that has been done for decades at the more extreme end of the off-road hobby. With 37-inch-tall tires and larger being placed on daily driven vehicles, a cylinder-assist system is now an extremely common upgrade.

In this article, we’ll dive into why this is and breakdown five reasons that you should consider it for your Jeep.

Transferring The Load

One of the most common failure points for the Jeep Wrangler’s steering system is the sector shaft. This is the part of the steering gear box that you attach the pitman arm to and what moves the drag link. When using a hydraulic cylinder to move the tie rod, you remove much of the load forces the sector shaft sees. In addition to removing the load, most aftermarket steering gear boxes come with an upgraded sector shaft to reduce the likelihood of failure even further.

Steering Responsiveness

With added power provided by the cylinder, the steering responsiveness increases as well. This means you can quickly and smoothly steer the vehicle no matter if it’s whipping into a parking spot or navigating down the trail. This is especially helpful for the modern JL and JT platforms, which are notorious for gearbox slop.

Lighter

Wrestling your steering all day on the trail will contribute to driver fatigue. A hydraulic-assist steering system lightens your steering load. This means there is less driver input needed to move the wheel on the trail. You can actually watch our video here where we demonstrate how you can turn a 40-inch-tall Nitto Trail Grappler with only 8 psi off-road with a single finger.

Maneuverability

Without a cylinder-assist steering system, you may find that your steering locks up on the trail, leaving you either in an unsafe or undesirable position. Incorporating a cylinder into the equation means you can now point the tires in the exact direction they need to be, even with the differential lockers engaged and air dropped into the single digits.

Proven

You don’t have to be an engineer or master fabricator to upgrade your Jeep with a cylinder-assist kit. In fact, if you can install a lift kit, you can install a cylinder-assist kit at home as well. What we will advise is to make sure you purchase a complete kit from a reputable company. The most well-known and well regarded in the industry is PSC Motorsports. They offer complete systems for a wide variety of applications, many of which are completely bolt-on. These systems have been around for decades and have proven to be reliable and safe.

When Do You REALLY Need It?

If you’ve never felt your steering bind off-road, you may feel as though this upgrade isn’t necessary for your vehicle and you may be right. Where you go off-road, the size of the tire, and even how heavy the vehicle is all contribute to whether or not your Jeep is ready for a cylinder-assist kit. As a general rule, we recommend cylinder-assist steering for anyone who’s moving beyond a 37-inch-tall tire and/or off-roads in high-traction/technical conditions where the stock steering is easily overwhelmed.