@JASMCS: if your wheel was straight and centered initially and now you have a slightly off steering wheel, if you choose to have the shop align to the current wheel position rather than reset the steering wheel, you will slightly affect the full lock wheel angle. This is because you will shorten one tie rod and lengthen the other but the rack stays stationary and slightly off center when the steering wheel is now centered. This will result in a different turning radius left to right and perhaps a tire rub issue. It could also affect bump steer but probably not as the change is pretty small assuming they only missed by one spline.

 

this is why i was saying an alignment seems like a drastic approach to correcting such a simple problem. not that an alignment every once in a while is a bad idea at all, but certainly not to fix what seems to be a skipped notch in the wheel cone.