Steering bushing sitting loose

I just had an alignment and new tires yesterday. Pulled the front left wheel to clean it and found the steering bushing 1K0423187 just sitting on top of a bolt just behind the steering arm. I am not a mechanic so my terminology may be wrong but it was just sitting on top of that flat part not fastened in any way

I'm about to call VW to see if there was a steering recall work done but does anyone know why the heck this would be there?

No recall. No record of steering work or anything that would have required the removal of that rubber bushing. Now I wonder if there is a bushing in the correct place or not.

Is there and easy way to get into the steering mechanism to see if there is a bushing in place?

I am thinking of pulling that plastic panel behind the brake pedal. How do you remove those plastic anchors with the 3 little holes in them???

The dealership checked this for me while doing recall (headlight screw) and warranty (ad Blue leak) work on the car. They confirmed that there is a bushing in place on the steering box and feel that the old one may have been removed during the emissions work and the old one just left where I found it.

Oh yeah, forgot there is a recall for them to put caps on the horizontal alignment screws on the headlights.

Yeah Monkey I wasn't going to bother with the headlight deal but since I was already there for the DEF leak I figured WTH. Turns out the caps were already in place on my car anyway.