Loss of Power Steering - 2013 Scion FRS Series 10
 

This is my first post so please forgive me if I'm in the wrong place or need to post better information.

We got this car for my son to go to college and the power steering has gone out on him while driving 3 separate times. We are very concerned that he'll get injured in an accident or even hurt others if this happens at the wrong time.

We brought the car in for service at a Toyota dealer and they basically said that they really couldn't do anything if it wasn't happening while it was at the dealer. The problem is very random and goes away if we stop and restart the engine so it is unlikely that they can duplicate the issue. Nevertheless we did let them keep it and do a diagnostics check but it didn't turn up issues or reproduce while they had it.

Also, we haven't had any electrical work added to the car and only power steering goes out (not power brakes). This is a 2013 vehicle and the problem first started around October of 2016.

Our plan is to have him try to drive it to a dealership while/if it happens again but our obvious concern is his/others safety if he someone loses control when this suddenly happens.

Has anyone else experienced this and had luck with a service department fixing the issue when it isn't occurring? We are really in between a rock and a hard place.

Thanks in advance.

My power steering goes out while im on the track at very high (for a street car at least) lateral loads while cornering (1.5Gs or more). I doubt this is your problem but I've read here that if the electric motor (its an electric power steering) overheats it will also shut down to avoid damaging itself. I dont think this is your issue either but those are cases where the EPS would just not work.

Did you get any warning lights in the dashboard at all? If you do, you could try reading them and see what the code is, other than that is a guessing game tho.

how many miles when it occurs?

It might just be the problem if the power steering unit is faulty. You may have something here.

Thanks for the questions. The dash alert with a steering wheel with and exclamation point comes on. Also, the car has 26,000 miles on it now so it probably started with 20,000 or so.

Fortunately we took it in for services while it was under warranty and they said it would be a warranty item since we are having the same issue.

Also, if it helps, it happened one time while he was following me out of the neighborhood while never reaching 45 MPH.

Edited to add dash alert image:

[QUOTE=Conch Shell;2834364]This is my first post ............QUOTE]

Welcome to the forum, @Conch Shell .........:clap:

Well, since the dealership says the fix would be covered under warranty, I would suggest you ask the service manager, since this is a safety issue, that they replace the whole power steering unit.

If the service manager doesn't agree to that, I'd suggest you approach the dealerships general manager or owner ....... stressing that they are now aware of the problem and it is a "safety" issue.

If all fails, I would have them replace the unit at your expense.


humfrz

humfrz, thanks for the advice. I'll do that.

Also, I did call the main Customer Care line and have a ticket number stating the problem and telling them it is a safety issue. They just told me to go to a dealer's service department and escalate from there if they don't offer to fix it. Funny thing is that the dealer told me to call Customer Care so they are both pointing me to each other.

There are a few examples of this but it appears the guys reporting the problem were not nearly as good at reporting the fix.
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2321579
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67939
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2812468


There was a recall for Australian vehicles but it was a very very specific issue restricted to a special set up only they had so if you come across that don't think you have found the answer.


The car is 100% stock?

Thanks tcoat, i'll check out those links.

Also, i'll report the resolution in this thread once we get there.

Edited to answer tcoat's question:

Yes, it is 100% stock, no alterations.

The only know resolutions we have seen were overheat issues and I highly doubt that is what you are up against so I am sure others would like to know.


I asked if stock because we have spent days trying to figure out problems based on an initial post just to have the OP eventually say "well maybe it is the fact I changed my entire suspension, dropped in a different engine and swapped the body for a carbon fiber shell".

Well, Conch Shell, I'd suggest you keep after both of them.

The main thing is that you get the car fixed, before your son winds up in a ditch .....or worse.

I reckon I would "carefully" drive it to the dealership, have them replace the power steering unit ....... then argue over who is going to pay for it.


humfrz

Subscribing to this because I'm having the exact issue in my 2013 BRZ with similar mileage. Unfortunately my car is out of warranty (powertrain warranty, I'm assuming doesn't cover steering), so I've been hesitant to take it to the dealer until I can figure out how to replicate the failure. So far it's been so frustratingly intermittent that I haven't bothered, knowing I risk incurring a hefty "diagnostic" free with no actual fix.

Things that set it off, sometimes, but by no means all the time:
- making a slow turn into a parking lot
- driving straight at 35 - 45 mph on a smooth road
- sitting at a red light, out of gear, foot on brake
- crossing train tracks

Sometimes the steering returns on its own after a few seconds.
Sometimes restarting the car is needed to make the steering return to normal.
Lately, neither has been true, but by the next morning the steering works again.

Over heating does not seem likely. Today the steering went out 5 minutes after starting the car. Mind you, it's 32°F at the moment.

I had no power steering when parked this evening. If it's still out when I start for work tomorrow I'll drive straight to the dealer instead.

Good plan!

It may be an expensive fix ...... but, the alternative could be much more costly ..... :eyebulge:



Reminds me of the time when my daughter (age 16) was being picked up for a date by a boy driving his mom's car.

Our driveway slopes down rather steeply. When he went to back out, the engine died, thus the power brakes didn't work. The car crashed through my beautiful, freshly varnished, all wood garage door.

When I arrived upon the scene, his mom had a garage repair man on site making a repair estimate, which she was going to pay for (smart mom).

I took my daughter aside and told her that I wasn't going to stop her from dating that kid .......but SHE was to drive HER car.

They only had one date.


humfrz

Oh, man. Talk about first date nightmare scenario for the kid!

Anyway, at the dealer as the steering was still out when I started it up this morning. Not looking forward to the diagnosis, but if I have to drive it in this condition I'll have forearms like Popeye in short time, and that's just not a good look for me. ;)

Well, I hope they can fix the problem.

If it were my car, and they couldn't isolate the problem, I'd have them replace the power steering motor and all associated wires and connectors.


humfrz

Well, supposedly the issue is resolved. I arrived at the dealer with the power steering not functional to be sure that the techs could observe it (left the car running). They did observe it, and observed it several more times on a test drive around the lot. Pulled a code C1513, which they said is a control module failure. From there, they disconnected the steering module harness, reconnected it, and could not get the fault to reappear.

In total, they had the car for a about an hour and a half and charged me $80 for the diagnostics time. Oh well. Kicking myself for not getting into the dash myself and checking for loose connections, but I've been busy, and my driveway is a cold place to hang out at the moment.

Could have been worse. A new steering module would have been $629.

So, for anyone else experiencing this and comes across this thread: if you're handy, you might try poking around under the dash, looking for loose wire harness connections in the vicinity of the steering column. Might save yourself $80.

As long as it doesn't just come back again. I am always a bit doubtful of "it was a loose wire". Why was the wire loose? A loose connection can be a symptom but not necessarily the root cause.

Agreed. If it shows up again then it could very well be the module being intermittent and needing replacement. Sure, the part isn't cheap, but I think what's likely to work out to less than a grand in parts and labor is worth the peace of mind that the power steering won't cut out in a situation that would affect the driver's control and make an accident possible. If it's not an enormous job, you could also DIY and only have the part cost to bear.

The power steering warning popped up today. I did not experience any power steering loss. I came home and parked it but there was a burn smell.
Was there a burn smell?

Will check the fuse box tomorrow but will need to drive it to closest dealership. Do you have a pic of the loose connector?

In searching I did notice the recalls in Australia. Will need to read in more detail.


Update:
Turns out its the brake light switch that went out. Got the ABS and traction control lights on when I drive.
Replacing the switch should fix it.

This just happened to me twice today. I have a 2013 FR-S 10 Series with about 58,000 miles on it. We bought it last month and have only put a few hundred miles on it. It appears to be stock, but we were under it the other day and notice holes on the bottom of the front air dam indicating that something had been attached with screws, so who knows what was done to it before it was returned to stock.

I hope someone finds a resolution to this as our car is out of warranty and I would rather buy an exhaust system than fix the power steering.

I will poke around under the dash and look for loose connectors, but a picture would be helpful.

Thanks!!

Since losing "steering" is a safety issue, should we contact or file a report with the NTSB?

It's been a few days and no re-occurrence. The only thing I did after the two incidents were to look at the fuse under the hood (which looked fine) and looked under the dash for loose connections. I did jiggle all of the harnesses I could reach.

I had noticed previously that there was some build of that white stuff around the battery terminals, so the next day we thoroughly cleaned the battery and terminals. I'm not sure if that helped the situation or not, but I'm sure it didn't hurt.

Thanks to anyone who can provide a solution. This car will eventually go to my sons, and having a root cause would give me some piece of mind that they will be safe.

Thanks!!

In Australia we got recall on power steering.
Mines been in got new powersteering control electronics and harness


https://www.torquenews.com/1084/suba...eering-failure

That recall was due to interference with the wiring from an knee airbag that we do not have in North America. It is impossible to happen here.

True


however it appears all the units will accumulate the "debris" then its possible if the debris is disturbed by other means, ie someone poking around in that area or rough road minor impact, could dislodge that debris and have same effect ??


Q1: What is the condition?
A1: The subject vehicles are equipped with electric power steering (EPS).
During normal driving operation, the EPS rotation angle sensor terminals may wear over time. This wear of the connector terminal plating accumulates in debris which may oxidise and become non-conductive.
Under this condition if the driver’s knee contacts the knee airbag lower cover, the EPS wire harness routed behind the cover also moves significantly which allows the terminal to contact the debris resulting in electrical contact failure.
In this condition, the EPS ECU turns on the warning light and the steering assist is interrupted whilst manual steering is maintained.
The loss of power steering assist will increase the steering effort at low speeds which may increase the risk of an accident.



You guys might not get the recall, but it may be possible for the same fault to develop, given a different set of circumstances ?

http://www.toyota.com.au/news/toyota...to-be-recalled

Possible maybe but so unlikely that it is immeasurable. The situation you had took a perfect storm of circumstances for it to occur. Remove any of those conditions and the probability drops huge. We have no airbag nor cover and the wiring is routed completely different. No doubt they checked to make sure that this was the only model that it was probable on. Toyota Australia seems to be pretty tight with the TSB info so it would be interesting to see what their fix was.

I guess I jinxed myself. It happened twice during one trip yesterday after writing that it had not re-occurred. I had been driving for about 15 minutes in stop-and-go traffic on the freeway, and as I exited, I lost power steering for about a second. I felt it in the steering wheel, looked down and saw the indicator on the dash come on, and then it shut off, and I got power steering back. About 2 minutes later, I lost power steering again. I had to stop for a traffic signal, so I shut the engine off and re-started, and I got power steering back again.

Does anyone have a solution for this? Do I need to replace something just to be on the safe side? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter

I think this is a job for the dealer. Power steering issues are very very rare on here so there isn't really a good info base to work with.

Wow I thought I was the only one!

I had this happen to me twice at RANDOM times so it was weird as fuck and my car is completely STOCK. First time was when I was on the freeway just crusing straight and the power steering just cut off, and I had to use no PS until I got to my destination.
Second time was on the street cruising to a stop sign and it cut off, so lucky I just pulled over, restart my car and power steering came back on.

It hasn't happened in a long time so I'm just puzzled why this shit was so fucking random.

This was like 1-2 years ago.

2015 FRS manual with only around 10K miles at that time too.

Thanks Tcoat. I was hoping that wasn't going to be the answer. Based on advice on this forum, I will have to wait until it happens again and take it to the dealer during an incident. Or does it make sense to just take it in and have them take a look?

Thanks!!

I would have them take a look. As seen in the thread it could be as simple as a loose connection. You could probably check them yourself if you can get up under there but I would personally rather have a concern on record at the Dealer incase it is something more.

This just happened to me today. Driving slowly in a condo area (park lawn for those in Toronto). Got the steering wheel with the ! light on the dash and lost power steering. Only electrical mod to the car is an aftermarket deck. I'm at 130,000 kms so looks like I'm on my own.

I was googling eps Toyota and it looks like you may have to replace the whole rack? This going to be pricey :/

UPDATE: Car is at Toyota and they caught one of the codes - they mentioned Toyota recommends a re-callibration first. Hoping that's all it needs.

The only thing I can think of is I hit a railroad track very hard at decent speed - could have thrown something off.

I thought we were done with this problem, but it happened again multiple times on May 27, and then again on May 28. We disconnected the power steering wiring harness for several minutes before reconnecting in July of 2017 and had not had a problem until two days ago. On May 27, we went on a lengthy drive that included some spirited driving on a twisty road. We drove for about two hours and then stopped for lunch. After lunch, there was about 30 minutes of twisties, and then once we hit the straight, the light came on and we lost power steering. We pulled over, shut the engine off, restarted, but the problem was still there. So we shut it off and let it sit for a while, and when we started the engine again, the problem was gone. It happened one more time on our way home, where cycling the engine got rid of the problem. The next day, it happened again on a very short drive.

I have yet to have an opportunity to bring it to the dealer while the power steering is out.

This is very frustrating and still a very big concern since my son now has his license and is driving this car by himself more often.

Has anyone found an actual solution yet?? Help please!!

This happened to me again almost a year later. I missed a track day yesterday at cayuga because of it.

Car was at the dealer and they pulled the code from the history - C1528 - Motor rotation angle sensor. This is the same code it threw almost a year ago - Toyota recalibrated the steering and it went away for about a year.

Here is what the service manual says on the code - it says depending on what happens in diagnostics to replace either the power steering ecu or the steering column assembly. Because Toyota cannot reproduce they are guessing and would have to replace both which is about $3k CDN. Not too confident in just recalibrating the steering again as this doesn't seem to solve the root problem. Anybody else having issues with power steering cutting?

Sounds pretty similar to that Australian TSB mentioned a while back in this thread.

I've been going back and forth with Burlington Toyota and Toyota Canada on this issue. I got a hold of someone at TCI where we filled out a product incident report. It was a very serious form - hopefully and maybe I can be the scapegoat for other owners to get a recall or something. It's ridiculous any toyota product would cut power steering on the road.

I'll keep you guys posted.

Since this is a Toyota power steering unit, I wonder if there are any other car models affected, like the prius.

Was finally able to take it to my shop and they scanned it with a Snap-on SOLUS Ultra. In the history, it showed code C1528: Motor Rotation Angle Sensor. I left it with them to see if they could replicate the issue and get more information. Will update if I find out anything more.

mine has done it twice with the windows down while it was drizzling. first time was at 5-10mph pulling into a restaurant and the second time was while cruising at 70mph. both times it does just go out, it actively fights to hold the wheel in whatever position you're in. turn it off and back on and all was well the second time. the fist time it happened it kept happening after 30 seconds to five minutes of running. the car had been in the same state for 6 months or more each time its happened.

Sorry...forgot to provide an update after I picked the car up. The shop manager's cousin works at the parts counter at our local Toyota dealership and was able to get some insight on my issue. There have apparently been several instances of this issue brought into the Toyota dealership. The most common first step is to align the car. So, my shop did an alignment. They said the alignment wasn't bad on my car, but what the heck. They also said that they won't be able to address my issue and that I should take it to the Toyota dealership for them to start a case.

In addition, this may or may not be related, but my "ABS" and traction control lights started come on intermittently. Then, my clutch went out, so I brought it back to the shop to have that fixed. They thought the ABS and traction control lights might be related to the clutch, but they persisted after the clutch repair. I was finally able to bring it back to the shop and found the code to be P1604: Start Ability Malfunction. They looked the code up and called the dealership and told me that it could be the steering angle sensor or the ECU. Sounds like it could be related to my power steering issue. I'll give an update when I get the car back.