Another power steering assist fault question

[Walter Chow]

Hi everyone, my wife drives a 2010 sho with 90000km or 54000 miles. The car is stock and has been a great car. Once in a while she would get the power assist steering fault and she would shut the car off, wait 10 seconds and then restart and be on her merry way.
Last week the fault would not come off when leaving work. The car is parked in the underground garage in tight quarters where it will be hard to drive out with the strong arm assist.
I am useless mechanically but went down to take a look. I disconnected the negative terminal for 15 minutes and reconnected with no luck. I know there is a pretty heavy battery draw while the car sits so I took the battery out and had it checked. The battery is 2 years old and still had high cranking amps and registered 99%. I reinstalled the battery and the fault still presents itself.
My wife babies the car. She just drives it back and forth to work. I see others with the same faults having to change the entire steering rack but they have double or triple her mileage.
I am hoping to have a mechanic friend come over this weekend to try to hook up his OBD scanner to it and hopefully reset or diagnose a failing part? Is there such a part? Can my friend reset with his scanner or am I going to be at the mercy of Ford and need to buy a new steering rack and have that reprogrammed?
Regular hydraulic power steering would have been great to have, I don't know why GM and Ford have moved to this electronic power steering. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Joshw0000]

Mine didn't have much more miles when it went out. Most likely you need a new one. Please don't go to the stealership. Find a local shop that has some knowledge of Ford's and they can repair it with a OEM and program it for half the price, or an aftermarket for even less.

From what I was told, over the years water somehow gets into it and shorts it out which is why it'll work intermittently for some time before it finally dies.

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[yaycandy]

Mine did it once, then i restarted the car and it went away. A few months later it came on while driving and lost power steering. And power steering didnt work again until i had the unit replaced by ford for nearly 2k$ out of warranty of course

 

[Joshw0000]

Mine did it once, then i restarted the car and it went away. A few months later it came on while driving and lost power steering. And power steering didnt work again until i had the unit replaced by ford for nearly 2k$ out of warranty of course

Maybe I should have gone to Ford. I paid $2,500. At least I had the peace of mind knowing that they won't break anything else while they're in there, which they've done with every car I've ever let them work on.

My first occurrence was over a year before it eventually died. Just before it died, it did it every couple weeks, then every couple days, to 3 times a day, to not working at all.

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[Walter Chow]

Thanks for the info. It doesn't look good. I phoned ford parts and there isn't much else available in regards to what else could have gone wrong. The parts guy said one sealed unit....so I guess it must be the rack. From Ford Canada, it will take 2 weeks to get out of USA and cost for the rack alone $3159.86 plus tax. I still have to have it diagnosed and programmed....OUCH!!
From a private reputable shop, for a remanufactured unit it will be about $2000 for the rack, $200 to reprogram, $540 to install, $150 to diagnose so $3128.82 after taxes.
I hope Ford's reprogramming is not proprietary and only Ford can reprogram? The total from the reputable shop all done is less than just the rack from Ford.

 

[yaycandy]

Thanks for the info. It doesn't look good. I phoned ford parts and there isn't much else available in regards to what else could have gone wrong. The parts guy said one sealed unit....so I guess it must be the rack. From Ford Canada, it will take 2 weeks to get out of USA and cost for the rack alone $3159.86 plus tax. I still have to have it diagnosed and programmed....OUCH!!
From a private reputable shop, for a remanufactured unit it will be about $2000 for the rack, $200 to reprogram, $540 to install, $150 to diagnose so $3128.82 after taxes.
I hope Ford's reprogramming is not proprietary and only Ford can reprogram? The total from the reputable shop all done is less than just the rack from Ford.

You can try to order one on tasca and install yourself. Im sure there is a writeup somewhere. Its not bad i hear

 

[Joshw0000]

You can try to order one on tasca and install yourself. Im sure there is a writeup somewhere. Its not bad i hear

I watched a few videos where it didn't seem that hard. Unless you have the tool, someone will have to reprogram it. It's not something a normal DIY'er can do.

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[yaycandy]

I watched a few videos where it didn't seem that hard. Unless you have the tool, someone will have to reprogram it. It's not something a normal DIY'er can do.

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You can install it and drive it fine but would have to get ford to do the programming for the lights to go out for features to work but the rack will work. Ive seen it in the past done with Forscan but im not sure how that would work

 

[Joshw0000]

You can install it and drive it fine but would have to get ford to do the programming for the lights to go out for features to work but the rack will work. Ive seen it in the past done with Forscan but im not sure how that would work

You're probably right but I'd be afraid to drive it without it being programmed after spending that much on a new unit.

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