Electric Power Steering
 

I need some help!!! I have a BRZ with very hard and stiff steering. Before this, the steering wheel would turn all the way to one side by itself but i got that fixed. I have gotten the airbag clock spring replaced since the cables were burnt off but other than that I have not gotten anything done to the car dealing with the power steering. However, if i were to raise the front of the car up on jack stands and turn the wheel it doesn’t feel hard at all. Does anyone know what it could be?

Sounds like it could be the electric power steering motor. It’s underneath your dash, do you hear a noise when steering?

Im not sure am I supposed to hear a noise or not? Haven’t really payed attention to noises.

Do you have a light on your dash that looks like a steering wheel with an exclamation point next to it?

Steering gets lighter when it’s in the air because there is no friction from the tyres being on the ground. That is normal.
Why was the clockspring cabling burnt?
Who fixed the self steering issue and what did they do?

^^^+1 to all three of these questions.

When you say it turn all the way to one side by itself, that is a surprising and rare failure mode for the servo system. The steering wheel actually deflects a spring-loaded sensor for the first few degrees of rotation before it applies torque to the pinion gear directly.

Was the clock spring destroyed before or after the drive unit was replaced?

yes i do have that light on

i believe from the previous owner it was in a wreck so the airbag burnt the cables. i took it to a shop and they replaced it for me.

I would start with checking the EPS fuse. There is also another fuse called the "ECU IG1" fuse on the power steering ECU. If you look in Ultra's sig he has links to the service manuals. If you look under "Steering", "Power Steering System" and "Parts Location" it will show you where the components are. If it burnt the clock spring connections it could have blown those. If those fuses check out okay, I would start checking connections for damage, or maybe the shop did not connect it on assembly. I'd also have DTC's scanned, if that light is on you should have a code that will point you in a direction.

where can I find those links for the service manuals or could you link them for me. and yes i have gotten it scanned and i got two codes i believe it something about the torque sensor.

um...

thank you. im sorry i’m new to this forum.

Just read what people write back to you. You'll get the hang of it.