Yes, it doesn't stop you from using the Bronco its more of an annoyance. And you need to retain the original if you ever want to get rid of the alerts, since you need to connect it to start the replacement sequence
Unfortunately Ford made it hard to just swap out the steering rack you will need to take it to the dealership ( or pony up for the FRDS software and interface ) to do it.
If you just swap it out, you will constantly get warnings about degraded performance every time you start your Bronco...
Sounds like they are warming up to drop some bad news for reservation holders.... "wait don't tell them yet let's start the swag machine back up first... ok now let them know. "
I was about to say yes absolutely there should be rubber on there.... But then I went and looked and mine doesn't have it either, looks exactly like yours, never noticed that until now.
As I mentioned to you mine showed signs up water intrusion as well but I think yours is even worse, and I may have been in a couple of deeper puddles at even higher speeds before too :) Not sure how yours seems to have let in even more.
Why? To see how capable the bronco is, to see how far it went in 2WD before even needing to engage 4WD.
The "grinding" is rocks scraping the armor underneath, that happens in 4WD too
On my black Diamond, trying to do dyno pulls it would cut off at exactly 100, if driving could probably get a bit faster with momentum but at full throttle it would crap out at exactly 100