Jefe514

Hello all, I haven't had power steering for over 3 months now and had some questions for anyone with knowledge on the issue.

My power steering started to be intermittent one day with the warning light on and no power assist. For a couple days, I could just stop the car and restart the engine and the power steering would work again for a couple days. Eventually, that stopped working, and sometimes the the light would come while I was driving. Now, the light was always on and assist was completely and always off.

So, I first brought it to the dealer and they said it was the Power steering ECU that was at fault for the malfunction. Problem was the replacement part was $1300 and my car is out of factory warranty (2004). So I tried to get clever and found a used (and supposedly working) ECU through atkinsrotary.com for significantly less and installed that. This fixed the problem for roughly 4 days. Then, like my original ECU, the whole process started again untill I again had no power steering.

My question is, could it be that my new (used) ECU part just has to be flashed at the dealer? Or, could it be another problem with my car? Could I just have bad luck and found a way to buy another defective ECU?

The flash would cost $150 at the dealer, but with no guarantee that would fix the problem I'm wondering if I should just bite the bullet and purchase a brand new ECU from Mazda and put this problem behind me. Any input on this problem would be great. Thanks!

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

The usual cause for power steering problems are electrical connectors. These are located below the tray that the air filter box sits on. There are 2 of them. You usually just disconnect them and plug them back in and the power steering starts working again.

Which dealer do you use?

teknics

when you install a new EPS module you have to perform the recentering programming, which can only be done at a dealer with the IDS.

i think youre problem is probably wiring related tho and not the module in the first place, altho ive seen the wiring, module, and rack all be bad and set that same code.

kevin.