Steering Gears?

I took my '08 Malibu LTZ in for an oil change/tire rotation and to fix the infamous steering noise issue and I guess in addition to the issue with the shaft they found an issue with the 'steering gears'. Not too sure about this since all I got was a message and I was too late to call the service dept. on it. So, I have two questions: (1) does anyone know about 'steering gears' and this problem and (2) when is the throttle body service (my car has 15K miles) required for this car (no manual with me of course)?

Thank you!