A system and method for converting a vehicle steering angle command to a vehicle steering torque command for a vehicle steering system in a vehicle. The method estimates a self-aligning torque that defines the torque that maintains a vehicle steering wheel at a neutral steering position or to a position that makes no slip angle at the road wheel, applies known total steering torque commands to the steering system at a plurality of sample time steps where the known steering torque commands include the self-aligning torque, and measures a vehicle steering angle at each time step. The method then models the steering system of the vehicle using the torque commands, the measured steering angles, a system delay and a plurality of unknown parameters.