[Brian in Tucson]

The power steering may be fubar from whacking a curb, bent linkage or bent stuff inside the rack would account for that. It would probably help if you got the front up on jackstands and check functions and conditions of all the parts. Or run it out to an alignment shop and have it inspected.

In my experience, the top and linkage is a nightmare. You can find all of it on Ebay for not too bad prices. On mine, I suspect that I've got to take it down to very basic operation to do proper adjustments and alignment. Pelican has pretty good stuff about aligning the transmissions, but it seems to me that if it's even a little out of adjustment, the top and the clamshell linkage will bind and even pop off or bend. A true nightmare.

What happens when you clear the codes is that the readiness monitors also reset. When you drive the car after clearing, the readiness monitors set and detect the cel's. Google "drive cycle" for a generalized discussion of this.

I bought mine in Aug. 17. Like you, I got mine very cheap. The saying around here is "There's no such thing as a cheap Boxster!"