Power Steering issues. Attempt for TSB or Recall
 

How many of you guys who have had the power steering issue (dead spot with overcorrection, or shaking wheel, or sudden jerk to the side, or failure without a sign) have filled out the safecar.gov complaint form? There are several claims on their website for power steering issues in the RX8 and they all have the same story; unpredictable steering which has nearly caused an accident. If you haven't made a complaint yet please do. As isolated complaints don't typically generate a response.
Mazda initiated a TSB on Mazda 5 and 3 power steering a few years ago, but they have hydraulic PS and the cause was metal shavings in the fluid.
https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/Vehicl...nt/index.xhtml

Since the original power steering thread is now 20 pages long and is now full of broken links, and since it was suggested, I'm starting a new thread with some info on how to complain to the safercar.gov site and a few good reference posts.

My story: I initially began to have issues in 2012 with a slight shake when starting up and turning the wheel. After a few feet steering was normal. This prompted me to re-route my coolant overflow hose and clean all of the connectors in the PS harness. This "fix" lasted for a couple weeks. When the problems returned they were different. Now when my electric assisted steering would either work or not work, for entire drive cycles sometimes. I once again cleaned and then filed the leads of the connectors to expose fresh metal. This helped for a few days and problems returned. I then did the old "tug and ziptie" method of securing the harness near the rad fans - no change. I soldered the connectors together and now have a shaky wheel (as shown in the video below) for the first few minutes of starting cold. During the 'warm up' process the wheel exhibits dead spots which can be very disconcerting when taking a gradual turn. You start to turn the wheel a little bit to navigate the curve and the wheel doesn't turn - no assist. I turn the wheel more with both hands like I would if I didn't have power steering and when the wheel reaches a certain degree rotation the car then catches up and overturns. This could pretty easily cause an accident if I wasn't expecting it.

Here are a couple links to helpful posts in the original thread:
Starhel1's teardown post
https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tro...7/#post4570253

My video

Replace it with wire, wire brush connectors, relocate the overflow tank tube.

Good for a long time.

did you read the post?

How old is your car?

There are issues with the harness....that is well known...your issue sounds like the torque sensor or rack is just worn out.

Has the car ever had an impact or hit a curb?

What age do you feel would be reasonable before you would need a replaced rack?

Car is 10 years old now - I'm ok with having to replace a steering rack if it's necessary. There are people out there, however, that have replaced the rack with no success. They have also replaced the PS ECU with no success or the harness with no success. I'd rather not just throw money at it until the problem goes away. In a couple of weeks I'm going to swap in a donor rack and see if that changes anything - since swapping PS ECUs with a known functional one did not resolve the issue.

I would make sure the wiring is perfect before I started doing anything else

The dealers will just throw parts at it till it works...that is the way they do things. When my car was about a year old...the steering quit...took it in...told them about the harness issue......and they told me that it needed a new rack ( warranty)....that didn't work...so they replaced the steering module ( warranty)....that didn't work. At this point I was tired of them pissing with it and fixed the wiring harness myself.

It worked like that for 8 years.....and last summer it quit again. I replaced all the sensor wires and wired around the plugs...and it works perfect again.

I have the fully functional parts from the first problems as spares if they wear out...so far in 10 years I haven't needed them

No shit,

I seen shaky steering Rx8 more than you can imagine.

this isn't something like the clutch bracket issue, of which I DID REPORT IT, and it turn into warranty extension.

80% of the time the issue is the wiring(connectors, actually), which they can have 50 million excuses to say "oh, it's wear and tear"

so check the wiring, replace it if necessary, that's it.