~ Power Steering Problem? This may be your answer! ~

05-11-2004, 07:59 AM

#1

Meowloud

Short Bus Allstar!

Thread Starter

Join Date: Feb 2004

Posts: 608

Likes: 0

Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts

~ Power Steering Problem? This may be your answer! ~

This is a post originally written by my hubby (Eclypse) on 04/12/04. Lounge told me I should post here to help anyone in the future with Power Steering Problems!

Here was the original post:

Hey all,

Meowloud (my wife) has been after me to start posting things on the forum for quite some time. Unfortunately, my first post is not a completely happy one.

We attempted to go to Orlando this past Friday evening in my 8, however, I don't think it was meant to be. Just below Atlanta - around Riverdale - I was going around a curve and noticed that my car was wanting to continue straight ahead. It kinda freaked me out because it had always been so smooth up until that point. I made a comment about how wierd it felt, then looked down and saw that the power steering light was on. Not good times!

We drove to the next exit and hit Mickey D's and decided that if the light was still on when we started the car that we would turn around and go back. We looked through the manual and, of course, there are specifications and volumes of information about every other fluid in the vehicle _except_ power steering. Hrm... that can't be good, but I thought maybe the computer just freaked out or something and all it needed was a restart. That appeared to be the case at first - we drove almost all the way to Macon, GA and it came on again. To make matters worse, about the same time, some oblivion *add strings of four letter words here* decided to pour his drink out (at 85 MPH) while we were behind him. Niiiiiice. Then he wondered why I was flipping him off. Sheesh.

Anyhoo, we pulled off at the next exit and went to the BP and called Mazda. They said that we could absolutely not drive the car and were going to send a tow truck to pick us up and take us to Five Star ( * * * * *) Mazda in Macon. Cool. Meowloud also called Air_ForceRx8 and Razpewton to see if they had any suggestions (BTW, thanks for all of your assistance and support guys!!!). Air_ForceRx8 knows the service manager at Five Star so we had a contact at least. He also said that there was only one other person that he could find who had this problem (someone on this forum), but the prognosis on his was _NOT GOOD_ (ECU and other parts and several weeks of going without his 8). After a lengthy wait, the tow truck picked us up and took us to Macon.

This morning, we go to Five Star bright and early only to hear that they don't have anyone who can help us. They also said that they didn't have any loaners and we would have to come back on Monday. Hrm.... not the right thing to start out with. We then got on the phone with Mazda and told them what our situation was. They said that they cannot have the car towed back to our home dealership and that they called six dealerships in a 150 mile radius. Of those six, only one would even humour us with assistance, but they wouldn't give us a loaner and WE would have to pay for a rental car (the service loaner part was one of the main reasons we chose Mazda). We just said thanks for nothing and decided that if you have to depend on Mazda on the weekend (or when you're out-of-town), you're screwed. To be fair to the rep that we spoke with, she did try to get her manager to handle our problem, but was told that she could not get our car back to Chattanooga.

Meanwhile, the guy at the service desk came in and asked if we would be happy with them providing us a rental car. Things were looking brighter. When we got off of the phone with the Mazda rep, Kim from Five Star (who works for the Mazda part of their dealership) came over and told us that they had no technicians available to look at the car until Monday, but that she would have someone check the car to see if there was just an obvious or minor problem that would allow us to at least drive back to Chattanooga. She also said that since Mazda told us not to drive it (and they didn't find anything fixable) it would probably void the warranty (I was just about ready to drive it back and dare it to explode by this point! haha). She said that she would give us a rental car, have their techs look at it first thing Monday morning, then call me as soon as they were able to determine what was needed to fix the car. She called Enterprise to come pick us up, found out (after the third call) that they were swamped, then personally drove us to the car rental place. Finally, we are now back home with only one 8.

Now, I understand that things happen (and we could have been much worse off), but I feel like Mazda dropped the ball (especially after we spent ~$70K with them). We love our 8s, but if you're stuck out in the middle of nowhere, don't count on Mazda to have you covered - have a backup plan!

Thanks to Kim and the folx at Five Star Mazda who stepped up to the plate and handled the problem, as well as Air_ForceRx8 and Razpewton for all of your assistance (and support)!!!

I hope my next post will be a happier one! =)

(Note: I finally did remember the electric power steering thing and I noticed that someone else has mentioned it as well, but late in the evening and somewhat stressed, I think we both forgot. Heheh, oh well...)

Last edited by eclypse on 04-25-2004 at 12:36

Reply Like