STEERING FAILURE , won't believe this one
 

Mom has had the 04 x8 for 20 months , 31,000 miles on it, loves it , has had a few issues resolved quickly. I notice other posts on Power steering failure but this ones different. She was parked started car steering light came on, the steering wheel turned freely as if it was not attched on the steering rack. The wheels did not turn. She turned car off and restarted, all was fine steering worked. The car went to dealer immediately. First they replaced the steering module, believed to be the problem but could not gauruntee it because what happened to her is impossible. MAzda keeps saying it could not have happened and they will not back down. They say that she had full power assist and just thought the wheels were not turning. What should happen if power steering fails is it should just be hard to steer, but the opposite occured the wheel turned freely like it was floating completely around. Now it has not happened after module replaced, but only has driven home, but imagine if this happened going 60 in a turn.
Any ideas?

She is a 55 year old driver, has always driven sports cars from a jaguar xke , to a ford probe, and is very familar with how the steering should feel.

I would have grabbed a camcorder and videotaped the steering wheel moving freely while the front wheels remain stationary.
________
Hand Job

Let us know how this has been resolved :eek:

cheers
michael

If you start the engine and subsequently stall it, the power steering will continue to work. This is the opposite of what happens on conventional hydraulic power steering. If this is what happened, your mother would be able to freely turn the steering wheel with the engine not running. That would feel very odd to her, as it's not the norm on all the other cars she has driven.

You can try this yourself. Start the car, select first gear while at idle with the clutch in, apply the brakes then release the clutch. The car will stall and the electric power steering will continue working. It's a safety feature in-built by Mazda to allow you to safely steer to the side of the road if you run out of fuel, or otherwise stall while in motion.

Did she SEE the wheels not turning, or did it just feel too easy to turn the steering wheel??? If it's the latter, then what I described above may be what she experienced.

Gomez.

Video taping would have been a good idea, my mom had no camera and was too startled to think of it. So far the dealer service manager agreed to test drive the car for one week. He is still sticking to the story . Tomorrow he is going over the mechanics of the car to illustrate why it is impossible for the steering wheel and wheels to become disconnected. So frustrating.

The engine was running and this happened on gravel, the car was moving and the car was not turning ,but the steering wheel truned very easily, she said it seemed to even move passed the point of where it usually stops turning , she turned the wheel twice almost completely around, the tires made no noise or movement on the gravel. I have to ask her if she looked out the window at the tire, but on gravel you would hear it .

You said in the first post that the car was parked.....

Yes it was parked in a gravel parking lot, started in a parked position when she tried to move out of parking spot she notcied that the car was not turning.

Has the car suffered from battery or electrical problems?

Is your mom on any kind of prescription medicine?

Yes it has had electrical problems, the check engine light came on and it was a engine control modul had the car about a week, called in an engineer from CA ( at least that is what we were told) , 3 days after that the car lost power while she was driving and just came back on by itself this happened twice , they test drove , did not find anything they thought it was bad gas. THis happened about a month ago.

I would recommend that if you try this ensure you have some clearance in front of the vehicle so that it will not hit anything when it lurches forward... ;)

Naturally.....although the car won't move more than a few inches, I did it in my garage 18" from the front wall. Put the brakes on HARD :) .

Lost power.......or lost electrical power (went dark and silent)........?

driving about 65 mph 5th gear , tried to accelerate , no response tacometer stuck at 3000- 3500 rpm wouldn't move, hit the gas nothing happened. No engine noise no zoom zoom zoom, Lasted about 1/2 mile to mile coasted to about 50 mph then down shifted , that seemed to correct it. Did not loose all electrical digital speedometer and radio etc worked. five minutes later it did it again same thing happened but down shifted sooner and it started again.

1) Did the check engine light come on when this happened?

2) You do know the rack and steering column are connected and only assisted via the motor inside the rack?

3) Has this vehicle ever been in an accident?

Yes, that does sound like a PCM (engine computer) failure.

The 15A Engine fuse also provides power to the EPS system...check that for an intermittent contact. It's in the main fusebox under the hood.

1) Did the check engine light come on when this happened? No

2) You do know the rack and steering column are connected and only assisted via the motor inside the rack? Yes that is why this is so puzzling

3) Has this vehicle ever been in an accident? No accident

My dad had a theory, how about a tooth broken off the rack ? So that if it hit that tooth the wheel woudl turn freely?

Are you certain that the yellow Power Steering failure light came on (with the little steering wheel), and not the DSC light? Does this car have DSC?

The rack has no teeth..just a big screw (for assist)

...and if something went bizarrely wrong there, the problem would be reproducible.

If you turn the wheel and the sensor doesn't move as requested you would have at least one of these codes..



RX8 Workshop Manual - Steering

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DTC Table
DTC Diagnosis system component Page
WDS or equivalent
B1318 Battery power supply (See DTC B1318 .)
B1342 EPS control module (See DTC B1342 .)
B2141 EPS system (neutral position setting not performed) (See DTC B2141 .)
B2278 Torque sensor (See DTC B2278 .)
C1099 EPS motor (See DTC C1099 .)
U0073 CAN bus communication error (See MULTIPLEX COMMUNICATION SYSTEM .)
U1900 CAN communication error (See MULTIPLEX COMMUNICATION SYSTEM .)
U2023 CAN communication error (See MULTIPLEX COMMUNICATION SYSTEM .)



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I was just adding a disclaimer for the slow folks that would try this while parked with a car or pole in front of them and not have the forethought to apply the brakes more than a little! :) Wouldn't want someone to get an id10T dent in the front of their car and compound their problems... :D

I make this stuff up as I go