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

This kind of problem actually scares the hell out of me.. but for good reason..

Several years ago, around 1990ish , I had a Toyota Corrola-Tercel (don't remember year but they made an odd hybrid, that is the actual name). I was driving home one night with a friend in the car, we came over a hill and at the bottom I turned the wheel left to go around a small curve.. the car kept going straight!! My friend started yelling at me to turn.. then looked over and saw me turning the wheel like crazy but the car didn't move... end of the story is we hit a tree, all were ok though since we weren't going that fast.

The mechanics that looked at it found that there was something they called a "Steering Pin" that was gone... supposidly this pin is enclosed in such a way that it's impossible for it to break/fall out.. and that someone had to remove it on purpose (oddly enough it was just in service to the same mechanic the week before). This pin held the drive wheel to the axel or so I'm told... and without it, seering is impossible. Thankfully it was ruled mechanical failure and insurance covered it without problem.

I don't know if the Mazda or even if cars today have such a Pin.. but perhaps if it does, yours might be loose.. at the time your mother drove it, the pin was partially popped out, and since has resettled?

Either way I'm usually pretty lax about some problems with cars, but steering is one thing I never take a chance on.

I'm sure the mechanics know what they are talking about.. but perhaps call another Mazda dealer, talk to thier mechanic over the phone and see if they also say it's impossible... maybe mom was a bit mistaken in that the wheels weren't moving?

I do that on carnival rides...much less chance for carnage there... :rolleyes:

This set up has a internal splined shaft that joins to external splines that have to mate correctly, held in place with a bolt and nut with loctite.

I would hope these things would not come apart then rejoin so the Mother could drive the car to the dealership.(where I would hope they could see the nut or the bolt missing)

I don't know what happened here but I would love to find out.

Heres a possible scenario , if the battery had been disconnected incorrectly at any stage its changed the steering positioning sensors to the incorrect settings causing the malfunction .
They have to be reset otherwise it can cause steering failure.

( I also have been reading my rx8 workshop manual ) ;)

cheers
michael

But the wheels would still turn manually..

I don't have the manual here so I have to ask you to look at the manual to see how the column is connected to the rack...

Just want to say thank you all for the input. The Mazda service bullitens are a huge help, my how things change when you walk in armed with information. My mother just got back from the dealer and they are basically giving her 2004 all the updates, from a new battery to fuel injectors, now that she mentioned she also noticed an engine miss and stalling once in a while things she just dealt with or thought were her fault. As for the steering, Mazda now claims it is possible that she did experience what she says happened. Something to do with the power, the magnetic field ,and also steering wheel alignment , they are checking the rack and steering column also , the computer does register the incident , not sure of exact error codes. All I can say is stay friendly with your dealer service manager and tech and also call the Mazda hotline too complain , not about your service tech but the engineers who give service tech's their information.Read those service bulllitens.The The Dealer can only do something if the customer complains with some force,stay firm in your psoition do not let them talk you out of it or convince you it didn't happen, its redtape. After a few hours of disputting Mazda's claims and some research on this great website, the car is getting worked on . We are crossing our fingers.

I am having a hard time understanding how the steering wheel could be turned and not turn the wheels, despite power assistance. We aren't talking about drive by wire or something...there is a very substantial physical connection between the steering wheel and the steering rack, right?

Correct. The front wheels are physically connected to the steering wheel. What the thread starters Mum said happened, didn't happen. She is simply mistaken.

The dealer is doing the right thing by accepting that the customer is always right, listening to her concerns, and doing a full functional check to find out what bought on the light. Whatever light it was. I still don't know if this car has DSC. If a fault light came on, a fault will be stored and they will find it. But whatever happened, it didn't involve a complete loss of steering control as Mum has claimed. I'm not saying it can't happen, I'm saying it can't happen and then come good again.

Gomez.

Mazda was right when they said it to be impossible, cause there is no way what she said happend, actually happend. Good job on mazda helping her feel better about the situation.

As there are no TSB's relating to steering, seems as if the dealer has responded to all the whining/calls to the Mazda hotline/thumps on the service counter and agreed to change the battery etc to placate this customer. Kudos to the dealer involved.

I'm not surprised we haven't heard back from this guy or his Mum after two weeks....there was no steering disconnect problem to start with.

Somewhere in the RX8 owners manual is a section on resyncing the elect. steering. Might be your problem

I think you're referring to the DSC calibration required after disconnecting battery power, which has nothing to do with steering other than you use the steering to do the calibration.

Steering Turning- try going back to the same spot
 

As soon as you mentioned gravel, you may possibly have answered the question. On tarmac or concrete you`ll get a normal feel at what we call "static steer" where if the car is not moving and you turn the wheel, the resistance is fairly high. Thats because the power steering is trying to get the tires to go around their "scrub radius" which takes some oomph when the car isn`t moving. On gravel, its a whole different ball game. Gravel acts like a bunch or marbles under the tries and all the scrub radius resistance disappears making the steering feel much lighter like steering on ice. Try this out so see how much difference it makes.

Otherwise, if you remain convinced that there was a real mechanical failure in the steering upper system you need to do two things. First, get the local area service manager involved. Second, have an independant professional engineer thoroughly review the module that your dealer replaced - because thats the only "smoking gun" you`ll ever find in this instance.

Best of luck - let me know how the gravel test goes.

Tom

Man this is scary.

No it's not, as the kid said when he named this thread......."You won't believe this one."

Guess what, I don't :) .

ok maybe this is very old post but my car does same thing in the morning almost twice in a week, the steering wheel will turn like its being controlled by yoda and with no wheel movement. then after the car is warmed up the eps will be fine and i dont get any cel for that. car is fine evern at very very high speeds and have been driving with this ghostly problem for 5000 miles so....i don know guys....never felt complaining about it ....

Might as well play to the other thread your running on this topic instead of pulling this one back from the dead:
https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-trouble-shooting-95/ghost-eps-89238/

please, somebody kill this really rediculous (in age and content) thread...