Hi, I’ve had this issue for a few weeks now. It started few days after I replaced my alternator because I shorted the battery and that killed my alternator. I got a denso alternator. The power steering feels okay while it works but it turns off randomly while driving, usually while taking a right turn. Oddly enough it never came on when turning left before. It stays on for about 2-5 seconds before it comes back on. Any idea what could it be?

EDIT: I checked my connection for my power steering and the connector under the battery was loose. Connected it back properly and never had another problem

 

Forgot to mention this happens pretty rarely. Maybe 1 time a day

 

Have you had any work done lately on front end, or do you have any codes? Do you have an aftermarket HID kit or ballasts in your headlights or fog lights? Those bulbs can cause all kinds of annoying and electrical issues. When power steering goes out this is a safety concern.
Definitely reset the ECU, check the connections at steering rack and power steering ECU. It's quite possible the steering ECU got shorted.

 

I haven’t had any work done in the front end other than the alternator like I mentioned. I do run HID headlights but they been on there for years now, I know that can cause issues but seems unlikely to me. But since it does happen while turning right, I’ll see if the ballast or however I connected it last time is still in place and I’ll see if it moves around and touches anything. Thanks for the videos, I haven’t seen the first one. I’ve never heard of I dielectric grease, is that okay to use inside the connections?

 

Dielectric grease is an insulator. It insulates, seals and lubricates the place of use while making it somewhat waterproof, it allows metal to metal conduction without risk of corrosion.

 

You might have shorted out your EPS module, since your entire power steering system is electronic. Maybe something inside the module is intermittently failing now. I'd hope that fuses would pop preventing damage, but I've seen other cars get very glitchy like this when it's been jumpstarted wrong (esp. BMWs, which required numerous modules to be replaced, EVEN with fuses supposedly there to protect it).

 

FWIW, fuses mainly protect circuitry from current overload. Reverse polarity is still happening to the component downstream. Critical components have reverse polarity protection devices integrated in to them that often times devote their life (clamp the current to ground), which then blows the fuse disabling the flow of damaging current.

The audio Amp in the trunk comes to mind. As for the EPS ECU, it likely has some very large shunt diodes that sink all that current to ground in order to pop the 80 Amp fusible link by the battery.

In any event, there can always be latent damage that shows up days, weeks, years after the event. A good reason to never take your eyes off your vehicle even for jump start or battery swap. It just takes a second to raise H E L L for the electronics to get destroyed.

As for OP's problem, Techstream and OBD fusion show a bunch of PID data that may be a tip off. That said, I would start with a battery disconnect, and pull and inspect connections for degradation, discoloration, burns, melting, oxidation etc.

Question, can you pinpoint when the loss happens? Is it for example after doing a bunch of parking lot maneuvers that would warm the unit up?

 

Thank you everyone for responding. I shorted my battery terminals about a month ago which lead to my alternator failing. I was checking the ground on the battery and hat to get under the steering ECU. Well 2 nights ago I noticed the connector wasn’t clicked in and was a tiny bit loose. I don’t drive much at all so I haven’t got it to do it again yet in the last 2 days. I hope clicking it back in properly fixed the issue. I’ve tried really abusing the steering wheel and just turning extremely fast and just doing donuts or whatnot and I never been able to pin point what exactly causes it. So far just being aggressive works almost never. I’ve noticed it usually happens when I get off the free way and accelerate while turning right. This still is very hard to get to happen, I couldn’t figure out what exactly causes it. But I was guessing and hoping the battery probably just pushed the ECU wire a bit to make it loose contact while I was turning. I’ll keep this thread updated if the problem remains. Sorry for my English I’m not a native English speaker.

 

Can you elaborate on this? "Shorted the terminals"... I really just want to confirm we are saying the same thing.

Short circuit = battery plus (+) to battery minus (-) are inadvertently bound together. Generally speaking, with the potential of 200 AMPs of current available, sparks fly, things burn, things melt, and people jump.

Reverse Polarity = reversing the battery leads when connecting the battery or if the battery is dead on one of the vehicles, reversing the polarity while connecting one of the batteries.

IMO - shorting the battery would rarely harm the alternator while connecting leads backwards would. Which one of these happened?