Power steering "fighting back"
 

Hey guys and girls,
Firstly I know this post shouldn't be here but as I can't post in fault thread yet I will post here and move,
So the power steering on my '05 is having a few niggles. On start up it feels normal, drive 4-5 miles once the car has warmed up a bit, the steering goes heavy and resistant to turn (mainly right) and feels like it is fighting back like I'm not allowed to turn lol. It still turns, just more physical effort is needed. It is very temperamental aswell. Like it'll go heavy then a me down the road go light again and repeat.
The steering wheel doesn't self centre either when it feels resistant.
A few points to note:
There is no lights on the dash
I have located the cable harness (thanks to tutorials on here) and I've cleaned the connections (didn't look corroded)
Battery is fine
Tyre pressures are fine
May just be coincedince, but when DSC is off it seems to inprove for longer but fault still occurs
Real head scratcher
Thanks in advance

moved to appropriate section

have youv had an alignment? has the steering wheel been off for any reason?

Steering wheel never been off
Not had a wheel alignment either :/
Thinking could be something to do with traction control? Is there a cable harness or something that I could check or clean?

I know exactly what you're dealing with because I dealt with it for a long time. For me, it was the connector. I finally got tired of the battle, and soldered the wires together about a year and a half ago. Haven't had any problems since.

What did you do there? Just cut then cables below and above the harness and solder?

the problem with soldering is that, there is no going back,

and the reason why the steering fails is because of 2 problems.

wiring corrosion. Resistance on the plug/harness going way up. power delivery goes down.

but biggest problem is the seals inside the rack broke. if any of you guys ever dissasemble one of those old racks, not hard to noticed some broken old seals is found on the inner tie rod hidding by the dust boot, the motor starting to go bad, needs more and more power to operate properly.

to fix it (me), I break the Front harness side connector, remove the pin, replace with new pin and connector (and put some dielectric grease)

Replace the EPS harness completely, newer version has better protection than old one.

for the rack itself, depends on how bad it is(how much the owner wants to pay)

replace with brand new one (has better seal, everything is new)
a reman one (cheap, can be found on ebay for like 4-500 bux)
or just do the reman work myself. (I can reman it for less than what I can Get on ebay, but it's a PITA process, I do it ONLY when I have a lot of free time)

Soldering is a really bad idea. It's better to buy a new updated harness

MAZMART - Serving The Mazda Community Since 1980. rx8-power-steering-wiring-harness

I tend to agree. And since lately I've been in a mood to fix her up properly (and having a little money for it, too) I might do this... On the other hand, there's that voice saying, "if it ain't broke..."

If it wasn't broke then why did you de-pin and solder it?

Try again ...

Sorry if I wasn't clear. It was broken when I soldered it 18 months or so ago. Since then the steering has been fine, which is why I offered this advice. I didn't invent this solution, incidentally.. It's been all over this forum for years.

I was saying, however, that lately I've been in a mood more to do things the "right" way. I like the idea of having a new wiring harness there, instead of my soldered solution. But I also included my hesitation: since it's working right now, and has been working fine for a long time, I'm not sure if it's wise to tinker with it just now.

That's all. Maybe I should have just done what most veterans here do, and include a link to one of the original threads covering this topic.

I clipped off the connectors and soldered mine without having a steering problem. I wanted to be sure I wouldn't ever have a steering problem. I never did despite all of the all-season weather driving I did. I would have run into the problem eventually, so it made sense to me to solve it ahead of time when i could take the time to do it properly and I wasn't having to deal with weather or a time crunch.

I don't see a problem with doing it preventatively unless you don't have the knowledge or skill to do it properly. Though in that case preventatively take it to someone that does.

It will be on the initial list of stuff to do when I get my next 8.

A new harness only replaces 1 half of the problem. Making it so that nothing can get down to the connector at all and it's better all around.

Why not solder the wiring harness to the PCM while you're at it ....

just making a point. I have an original harness and never had a problem. Plenty of others too. Who has had a failure with a new harness? There are also other things you can do such as route the coolant bottle overflow to discharge elsewhere, grease the connectors down, etc.

Otherwise if I bought a used car and needed to disconnect the harness for whatever reason only to find it soldered on the terms I'd use to describe the person who did that would get me banned from this site ....