For the past year my power steering has been getting worse and worse. At a certain angle, the steering wheel shakes terribly and turns itself when it does. This only happens when i'm first starting my car in the morning or at night while I am driving. Seems to be the cooler it is outside, the worse it is. When its 95 degrees out, it has no problem. I read another article about cleaning the connectors. I went to auto-zone and bought electrical connector cleaner (stuff is not cheap!) and di-electric grease. I cleaned the power steering connector on top of the cooling fans, while i was at it, I went ahead and cleaned and super greased every single connector I could reach with my hands or that I could see. The only connector I could not get to is the other power steering connector thats mounted by the bottom of the cooling fans and on top of the steering column. My question is, does this connector have a tendency to get filthy or corroded? What else should I be looking for or diagnosing? Any help is appreciated. She is at 155k miles, same original engine, no power loss, no major problems but this steering issue so far. Its driving me nuts.

 

dielectric grease from autozone is only like a 1.50, canned air at max is like 3 bucks for one can. thats ALL you needed.

Yes, it does have a tendency to get filthy, the coolant reservoir has a hose that leads out, and thank to mazda its right above the PS connectors. Extend that hose somewhere else and the problem of having coolant all over your connectors is GONE. no more coolant/water corroding your PS connectors.

next time your under there (not your underwear, playing with another connector) get some tubing extend that overflow (once again not your p3n15) tube, and clean out the connectors once again. This time only using dielectric grease and canned air.

 

cleaning only works for some people. It worked for me for exactly one week then came back. The next step is to replace the wiring harness. Also read through this thread...

https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-trouble-shooting-95/power-steering-failure-107481/

 

how's it going? quick question. i have a 06 rx8 and i took it out of storage a few days ago and i had no power steering. the light was on my dash and im trying to figure out what the problem could be. when im driving its ok to turn but when i stop its really stiff and you almost have to use 2 hands to turn the wheel. is it possible that it could be a connecter?? or has anyone else had this problem befor

 

plenty of people have had this problem, try cleaning out the connector first to see if that helps

 

It's a weird symptom, I have the same thing, even though I soldered those cables together.
The rattle will only happen when I turn my steering wheel about 20~25 degrees left. Once I get the rattle I can say goodbye to turning right easily. It's most likely the steering rack at this point.

 

so i ended up cleaning the connecter and it did not work so i had to take it to a mazda dealer and it ended up being that my power steering control modual was burnt out. thnk god for warrenty becasue it was a very expensive repair. hope no one else has this problem