EPAS_w001 - Our Model X almost killed us today :(

[TSLA Pilot]

Just curious which state you're in?

AZ for the Lemon Claim on an AZ MS.

 

[Q-ship]

Had a long history of EPAS faults on at least TWO MS’s since 2013. In each case they were sporadic and intermittent, but also potentially fatal as the MS is nearly unsteerable without power steering, at high AND low speeds.

Got bent over on trade-in value from Tesla, but replaced them with new MS’s, after ensuring they were eventually repaired.

NOT ANYMORE.

One of our current Plaids is being bought back (60+ days out of service!) as we’re damn tired of Tesla’s chronic Quality issues. I think legalized pot use in CA and a remarkable “Ship this garbage MS out and let the Service Center fix it” mentality aren’t doing Tesla and Tesla’s Mission any favors….

Rant over; good luck and BE SURE to take pics of error messages when they occur.

Lemon law the thing and get one of the good ones….

Another EPAS fault alert today on our 22 MXP. Thankfully, my wife was in a mall parking lot and hadn’t lost power steering yet, so she was able to park safely. The car is over a year old, and the lemon law in Utah is for 1 year. Not sure what I am going to do if Tesla can’t figure out why this keeps happening.

 

[Q-ship]

Another EPAS fault alert today on our 22 MXP. Thankfully, my wife was in a mall parking lot and hadn’t lost power steering yet, so she was able to park safely. The car is over a year old, and the lemon law in Utah is for 1 year. Not sure what I am going to do if Tesla can’t figure out why this keeps happening.

Update. We continued to get sporadic EPAS alerts. Didn’t lose power steering again, however. Some of the alerts cleared spontaneously without stopping the car, all of the others cleared when we stopped and let the car go to sleep. They finally replaced the steering rack about two weeks ago. So far, no alerts.

 

[TSLA Pilot]

Update. We continued to get sporadic EPAS alerts. Didn’t lose power steering again, however. Some of the alerts cleared spontaneously without stopping the car, all of the others cleared when we stopped and let the car go to sleep. They finally replaced the steering rack about two weeks ago. So far, no alerts.

FYI: on one of our '22 MS's they did this (new EPAS rack) as well, but some faults still remained after a long test drive. They replaced a wiring harness and/or another computer of some sort to address the fault and it appeared to have solved the issue so keep an eye out for any more EPAS faults and suggest they replace "upstream" wiring and/or controllers.

And, having a yoke, the "on center" of the yoke was very noticeably off by a few degrees, even on uncambered roads so had to return to have the alignment redone. Quite the time sink, sadly.

 

[dskid]

Yes, power steering failure is a very serious safety defect.

Recommend you file a report with NHTSA ASAP: www.safercar.gov

On a more pertinent note, our country (US) has a stunningly poor level of driver's education, especially as compared to Europe. Hence, the OP's feeling that the steering wheel "locked up" when, in reality, it was simply very, very hard to turn in his situation. Had he sped up, or applied more force, a near-head on collision situation would have been avoided. It was a very poor move to just let that sort of accident unfold due to a lack of knowledge of how non-powered steering works.

No Model X has a steering wheel lock, AFAIK, and never will . . . but it's what you end up with when there is nearly zero quality drivers education here.

p.s. And, a huge shame on Tesla for not improving the alert/warning for this failure mode. They really need to hire some Human Factors Engineers to explain to them how to rank order and alert for various failure modes . . . .

My wife had the same problem, the steering rack in the X is exposed to the elements far more than a normal car (I guess?) and she could barely turn the wheel. We had done the previous recall where they shoot some urethane in it to try and seal it but it was pretty bad and scary when not expecting it. Although it could be different issues (this one had errors, we did not) the steering rack is prone to corrosion and can actually seize. Kind of crazy for a 4 year old $100k car.

 

[TSLA Pilot]

My wife had the same problem, the steering rack in the X is exposed to the elements far more than a normal car (I guess?) and she could barely turn the wheel. We had done the previous recall where they shoot some urethane in it to try and seal it but it was pretty bad and scary when not expecting it. Although it could be different issues (this one had errors, we did not) the steering rack is prone to corrosion and can actually seize. Kind of crazy for a 4 year old $100k car.

Hopefully replaced under warranty at no cost to you?