RobertD

are there any electronic power steering troubleshooting gurus here? i have a car here that is driving me batty. idk if i should buy the motor, the module, or the $99 harness. i need a brain to pick if there's one here available

2015 si. sometimes no EPS, sometimes it's fine. sometimes restarting fixes it. delaer says it needs a motor and the wiring harness, but google leads me to believe the problem is always the module.

ezone

Need to know the EPS fault codes first.

Have you done a visual inspection to see why they estimated the parts they did??

Got rodent damage in the wiring or something?
There's quite a bit of wiring that can be damaged, you can see most of it if you slide under the car and stare at the steering rack area. There is an exposed harness that attaches to the steering rack assembly, and more wiring that leads from that part to the inside of the car. There could be more wiring for sensor(s) that is part of the steering rack (I can't see your car from where I sit).

RobertD

OMFG i just wrote for 45 minutes and my post disappeared

33-01 and 33-06

battery has been tested 2x.

i have a thread about it in the link below, but i would prefer a different forum so i'm asking here instead. i just don't fit in there. i've posted maybe 10x there in 2 years.
the link will bring you up to speed.
http://www.9thgencivic.com/forum/mec...-civic-si.html
i'm not planning to reply there anymore.

where that thread left off...the shop did do a wiggle test on the wiring and could not get the EPS to fail or throw a code by wiggling wires or connectors on the rack. i have also visually inspected it and i see nothing alarming. i'm pretty thorough, short of seeing a wire broken inside it's sheath. personally i think the module in the car is flakey and the dealer is just blaming the motor because they didn't install it. everything i read about problems has to do with the module, not the motor. but that's why i'm here, hoping someone is more familiar with these and smarter than myself. also just to be clear, i'm not a "car dealer hater". i try to give them the benefit of doubt, but i have called their bluffs 2x before, so i like to do my homework



oddly, i have the shirt pictured in your avatar. lol. i build/beat on a 92 mustang. i do the ecu calibrating and all the work right down to porting the parts or measuring the bearing clearances. im pretty good at cars, just not EPS stuff. it's my girlfriends car. usually she just goes to the dealer where they do their thing, wash it, and hand it back. unfortunately my friends shop fixed it 18 months ago, so i'm in the middle now.... and clueless

ezone

Kinda skimming the other forum thread here.....I'm also a member there and own a 9th gen car...but I hang out on this forum a lot more.
TEEPS is one to pay attention to...he is retired from Honda, he used to work on the technician assistance hotline and still has access tons of factory info.


You say it was in an accident......I know the rack housing can be kinda fragile....


IMHO the EPS has been pretty darn reliable in my area.....it stands to reason your issues could be damage related (got shorted briefly during the accident, now control unit is suffering? IDK).....or maybe since you said connector problems.......corrosion/oxidation forming in the connector terminals...or maybe even something bridging terminals, or bridging a hot to a ground, even partially... Corrosion can do weird things electrically. Moisture in a connector can cause some damn strange issues.

Get insurance involved again? ? LOL

31-01 is torque sensor neutral position not learned, probably need the Honda scanner or a high level aftermarket scanner for relearning that one if it still remains after finding/fixing the root cause (was it ever done after new rack was installed?)

33-06 lower FET (field effect transistor) stuck on, ...basically you would be checking if any of the 3 huge wires are shorted to ground (FSM says check for continuity to ground, but I bet any unwanted conductive path is too much)
between the control unit and the rack motor, either internally (rack motor) or externally (either harness) and if no true or partial short to ground is found (don't forget water and corrosion can play strange electrical games too), then control unit is what's left.
Again, I personally haven't had to deal with this particular issue-- but others out there may have.

The random nature of the issue (your description), and that it may disappear by doing nothing more than several restarts of the car makes me think I'd want to try a control unit first.
Know anyone with an identical car you can try swapping with?

RobertD

since the car was up on the rack friday and they wiggle tested the harness on the rack, not only could they not replicate the problem, but the problem has not returned. this morning we scanned the car again and no codes have come back.

my girlfriend offered up one more tidbit friday night... i love getting info crumb by crumb.. the first time she had a steering issue was when she restarted the car after trying to plow through hard plowed the snow at the end of her mothers driveway. so maybe it was moisture in the connector, or possibly she damaged/dislodged the wiring.



and yea... i mentioned accident. it was well over a year ago and has been 100% perfect since being repaired. the rack and steering motor were replaced by insurance out of caution. i was impressed with the amount of damage she did without scratching or denting the car. the rim was actually cracked on BOTH sides. one side from the curb, the other side cracked from hitting the control arm. ..see attached

ezone

It COULD have had water or moisture causing problems.........If that's the only thing that anyone touched----and now the problem is gone, it stands to reason the problem could have been in whatever parts were touched.
Might be hard to prove it now though....wait and see how it goes I guess.



In the shop environment, much like the doctors office or emergency room, it's always amazed me that people withhold pertinent and critical information about their problems (I accidentally sat on it, yeah that's it!).....like it might make our bill cheaper or something.



I like the broken tie rod. I've always said these are great cars but they aren't overbuilt, they don't withstand abuse very well.....not like the old American gas guzzling cast iron land barges from the 60s and early 70s that I grew up with LOL

RobertD

i agree with all you wrote. they ordered a 21k mile take off rack friday, but since there's no codes, i was instructed just to drive it and see what happens. there's no need for anyone to prove anything. i letter the tow trucks for the shop that did the work. they've been MY customer for 15 years, so now that they're helping me i couldn't have a nicer or more honest place to take the car. it's just they're admittedly stumped as well. all they touched was the wires. tugging, pushing, pulling, trying to recreate the problem... and now it's "fixed". it'll be back, but the rack will be sitting ready i guess. i agree with you the module makes the most sense, but i don't know. im clueless on this car, i'm in the stoneage

RobertD

just to update... the problem never returned after wiggle testing the wiring. moisture in the connector due to plowing into a hard snow packed driveway must have been the only cause. i bit my tongue replying for fear of making the problem return, but this civic and and the girl that owns it r are no longer in my life or of my concern.