...if, you are guessing that the steering wheel is rotating 3 inches (radial travel), that is about 19 deg on a 18" diameter steering wheel and is totally normal.
In the early days of California Critical Item Inspection for commercial vehicles, and I couldn't find a copy of this although I might still have hard copy someplace, I believe this would've been considered Vehicle Out Of Service (VOOS) criteria. They used to have a chart, but 2" travel on a 20" or 22" steering wheel, max, sticks out in my mind. And it stuck with me because, at the time, I thought ALL our heavies have more than that!! Delivered new! They have since gone away from that particular way to judge wear and evolved into a more detailed component inspection for wear.
