Lost steering on the road!

[new3]

I got lost today on my way to a job site so I pulled over on the side of the street to bring out the GPS while I kept my foot on the brake paddle. After I was done with the GPS, I was about to pull away from the curb and I found the steering to be extremely stiff. I figured I got something trapped under the wheels so I got out of the car and looked around and found nothing. I got back in the car and found the steering wheel icon lit up on the dashboard.

I shut the car off and phoned Mazda. I was told to have the car towed to the dealership to have it checked. I was told it could either be a leak something or a software issue. I was even bitching about them not providing a loaner car to me. But after I got off the phone (5 min. duration) and started the engine, the steering wheel icon was gone and the steering was back to normal.

Does anyone have any idea what happened to my car? It is a scary thought that this may happen when I am driving on the highway and losing control of steering!!

Any help is appreciated!!

[Donutz]

There is another member who has recently had his powersteering cut out a number of times. Search for that thread; it might give you some idea's. Maybe Sas can tell you what the dash light means. I wonder if your ps pump has died..

[wluu]

whoaa.. some scary stuff.. which dealership did you get towed to?

[She_Prime]

I had that happen to me too once before. The car was only 1100kms old and I was pulling out of my mom's work parking lot and it was extremely difficult to steer and the steering wheel light came on. After that and to this date (the car has 14,2xx kms on it now) have yet to have the same issue.

It is a power steering failure for sure. Just don't know why it occurs. Or how often it may occur.

[kurse]

lol happened to me on my way home after my first oil change that and the abs light came on. went away and never had the issue agian. been like 3 months now

[notoriousb]

my light comes on if i turn too much to one side or go over a driveway on a sharp angle.
But my power steering stays good...

The light goes away once u turn off the car and restart it. What sucks is that you have to show this happen to the dealer, and obviously by the time it got there it was fine so they gonna send u home.

Intermittent problems suck.

And don't worry about losing power steering on the highway... when the car is moving... u can move the steering wheel almost as good as with power steering lol

[Noisy Crow]

Power steering is run by an electric motor... could be an intermitent electrical problem.......

[GHANNAH86]

Their was a user on the Ottawa Mazda boards saying that they took it in to their dealer and they mentioned an overheating issue with the pump. I honestlly could beleive that explination or an electricl issue since like the Op when I turn off the car and turn it back on it clears the problem.

[sas]

Jason, you are idealizing me.
Of course it's the steering pump,but I don't know what wrong with it .
The steering pump has a microcontroller inside and exchanges by messages with the control panel. The main computer stores the only message that the EPHAS module asked to enable the error light.Error should be stored in the EPHAS controller.
If dealer has the Mazda WDS tool, he could to read error and to perform the full diagnostics of the steering pump. Do check the steering fluid level.
I think the possible causes are: error in the CAN bus,steering angle sensor,
overheating(though it's not so warm now), problem with voltage.
There is a few things which I'm afraid when driving on the highway:
exploded front tire,exploded airbag and the steering pump failed somewhere on the curve. Terrible things,you have no time to understand what happened.

[RemaerdLacidar]

I had this happen to me over the weekend a few times. I phoned mazda earlier today and was told that I should be receiving something in the mail from Mazda Canada in the next few days regarding a recall on the power steering pump. Supposedly a design flaw in the steering rack is causing the pump to overheat so the pump shuts itself off to protect itself from damage.

[Hives]

there is a recall on the power steering pump I believe. I have to go to the dealer on Sat so they can replace it under warranty.

[slidxe]

I had this happen to me over the weekend a few times. I phoned mazda earlier today and was told that I should be receiving something in the mail from Mazda Canada in the next few days regarding a recall on the power steering pump. Supposedly a design flaw in the steering rack is causing the pump to overheat so the pump shuts itself off to protect itself from damage.

which years are affected?

[RemaerdLacidar]

which years are affected?

He didn't say.

I'll post an update in this thread when/if I get any more information

[shootemup]

hmmm... Interesting about this recall thing. Keep us posted about it.

I had it happen the second day I had mine. My have been user error though ;) I was driving on a straight stretch and needed in my glove box, which was locked. I pulled out the key, unlocked the glove box and put the key back in while still moving. Power steering never came back online. I pulled over and restarted the car and it still didnt come back. I said, oh well, pulled away and half way through pulling onto the road, it came back. I almost ditched the car, cause I was putting so much effort into a manual steer and when the power came back mid turn, the wheel quickly spun cause of the force I had on it. I have also seen my light flash on and off ever now and then when i do a slow launch and dont give it enough gas and the engine stutters.

[McGuyver_3]

i had the issue a couple times on my old 3 happened on the highway to wasnt that hard to move as you are moving relatively quick helping the turning. Never happened again afterwords

[mazdathree]

Losing power steering would really suck!

[Dreamliner]

Why does it seem Mazda has so many recalls and issues with cars that are new? Steering issues and struct leakage is not acceptable for a car thats still under 30-40K years old. Never in my life have I heard of a Honda or Toyota having these issues on cars with 2000km! My parents were right, Mazda isn't on par with Honda/Toyota at this point.

There I said it, the car are nice but I need reliablity.

[McGuyver_3]

i drove my 05 with lowering springs about 90000km never had anything wrong with the suspension or the power steering and now i got my 2010 with 1700km on it lowered and still have no problems. I guess its a luck thing. You will have your fair share of hondas and toyotas that are problem cars. One of my coworkers used to work for toyota and he said that they were disaster cars. Good quality cars but when something goes wrong they hit the fan. dont always be jumping to conclusions just because you dont hear about it doesnt mean its not happening. Some recalls are not even announced to public inly if the customer complains will they put the recall to use.

[Noisy Crow]

Keep in mind 1000's of these cars are on the road. Some percentage _will_ have problems. And with so many of them out there, perceptions can be distorted, as the problem ones are large in number compared to cars for which there are fewer driving around. Also, how many people (other than Hyundai owners :chuckle) go around saying, "my car didn't break today"?

These cars actually get decent reliablity ratings:

http://autos.msn.com/research/vip/Reliability.aspx?year=2009&make=Mazda&model=Mazda3&trimid=-1

[mazda lover]

Keep in mind 1000's of these cars are on the road. Some percentage _will_ have problems. And with so many of them out there, perceptions can be distorted, as the problem ones are large in number compared to cars for which there are fewer driving around. Also, how many people (other than Hyundai owners :chuckle) go around saying, "my car didn't break today"?

These cars actually get decent reliablity ratings:

http://autos.msn.com/research/vip/Reliability.aspx?year=2009&make=Mazda&model=Mazda3&trimid=-1

^^^^^^B* yup lots of distortion
just go to edmunds.com and go to the Mazda forum. go to "problems and repairs" there is a few there having power steering issues...
MSN heating and air conditioning minimal problems..don't agree with the rating...I guess it is saying no repairs and nothing about how bad they are in heating and cooling the car...

[seelsy]

as said by others, many cars are bound to have an issue somewhere. My old civic had a design flaw in the exhaust manifold where the forth chamber was designed too low, lower than the others, causing water to pool in the basin after hitting a puddle, causing premature cracking in the forth pipe, which causes the sensors to act up, and thus needing to replace it at a huge cost. Happened to almost every pre 06 civic owner ive spoken to at some point. Issues happen, but for the most part, mazdas seem pretty reliable.

[Zoom Zoom Boy]

Why does it seem Mazda has so many recalls and issues with cars that are new? Steering issues and struct leakage is not acceptable for a car thats still under 30-40K years old. Never in my life have I heard of a Honda or Toyota having these issues on cars with 2000km! My parents were right, Mazda isn't on par with Honda/Toyota at this point.

There I said it, the car are nice but I need reliablity.

That's funny. Would you like me to list all of the Honda and Toyota TSB's and recalls for you? Give me a model year and make and I'd be happy to take up lots of server space on here for you posting up the results.

[DESTROYER]

Steering issues and struct leakage is not acceptable for a car thats still under 30-40K years old.... My parents were right, Mazda isn't on par with Honda/Toyota at this point.

There I said it, the car are nice but I need reliablity.

Yes you did say it.... cars under 30 to 40 thousand years old shouldn't have these problems. They usually start after 40 thousand years (except for Honda's or Toyota's which show it earlier). And yes you should have listened to your parents. It's not good to ride your trycicle without your helmet on. :chuckle

LMAO sorry, just couldn't resist forcedreg. No hard feelings. :)

[JashiK]

HAHAHAHAHAHA damn some old ass cars. Didn't know we had cars back then. Thought it was pure bare feet and maybe leather sandals or something of that sort.

[FLIPDADY]

Continue this discussion here.

http://www.torontomazda3.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=32875