Was driving this morning in my neighborhood.
Steering wheel gets really hard to turn left.
Then right.
Then it was almost impossible to move it.
I pull over.
Light from the dash is a steering wheel and an exclamation point.

What gives??

good thing i have the roadside assistance until Feb '08.

Sucks.

 

Besides extra effort were there any other symptoms?

 

before I quit trying.. it was impossible to turn. No other symptoms at all.

 

Ouch
1 Sorry that happened to your car. I hope it gets fixed quickly.

 

Bad luck! Hope it gets fixed soon.

 

Happened to me last summer. I could steer the car with great effort. The power assist went away.
This happened after I put a new front sway bar on the car. I had disconnected the power steering cable for the install. After driving a while the problem showed up. When I got home I disconnected and reconnected the connectors (under the air cleaner box tray) and all has been good since.

 

sucks

 

looks up MazdaManic's power steering failure thread. He cleaned the PS connectors with a solvent and it worked. Your connections may have just become dirty.

 

Hope you live in the Midwest.

 

you can still drive the car without power steering, you will just be unable to make quick changes in direction.

power steering failure seems to be common, the connectors don't seem to have good contact.

 

they just soldered my connectors together