Model S "just died". Need steering column?

[tmc42]

Last night my 2017 MS unexpectedly "died" while I was about to make a right turn. At first I noticed the turn signal didn't work. Then I realized the accelerator didn't work and there were lots of alerts (GTW_w041, GTW_W104, APP_w009, GTW_w027, GTW_w037, GTW_w099, MCU_w012, and many more). The car was not drivable. Pressing the emergency flashers button didn't work. Pressing the physical open glove box button didn't work. I couldn't put it into Park (was free-rolling, but fortunately on level ground). The two-thumbwheel reset didn't work. "Safety > Power Off" didn't work (screen went black for a couple of seconds and then came right back to where it was before). At one point I left the vehicle while waiting for a tow, and it locked me out. Auto-present door handles didn't work. It was unresponsive to my key fob, unresponsive to Tesla Roadside Assistance remote unlock, unresponsive to unlock from my app. The lift gate didn't open. The tow truck driver managed to unlock the vehicle (they have cool tools, and do this all the time).

What did work: I could interact with the touch screen. I can view the location of the car through the app and see it update as it was being towed (on a flat bed). I could turn the headlights on and off from the touch screen. I could listen to the radio and change the streaming source.

The service center technician found an internal part failure in the steering rack, and replacing the entire steering column for about $4800 should fix it.

Question: Does it make sense that nearly everything, including door unlock, flashers, pressing the physical button to open the glovebox, all "goes through the steering rack"?

 

[zoomer0056]

Nope, I can't understand that, its gotta be more complicated than that. Maybe there are connectors on the rack. Very interested at what the invoice says after it's fixed. Hopefully somebody here on TMC can shed some light.

 

[tmc42]

I forgot to mention… After I got back in my MS (thanks to tow truck operator), the steering wheel was shaking on its own. So there may be an issue with the steering column, but I doubt it explains everything else that preceded that (car just dying while driving, turn signal and flashers not working, door unlock not working, glovebox not opening, Power Off and two-thumbwheel reset not working…) Here is a video:

https://flic.kr/p/2p8VY5C

 

[cbdream99]

Time to take it back to SC. Can you wiggle the steering column by hand? It may not be properly installed or tightened.

 

[tmc42]

The shaking steering wheel was from before I took it into SC. It is still there.

My question still stands: Does it make sense that all the failures — door unlock, liftgate, flashers, the physical button to open the glovebox, "Safety > Power Off" all not working — all failed due to an internal part failure in the steering rack? I don’t know, but find that unlikely.

 

[Gtech]

The shaking steering wheel was from before I took it into SC. It is still there.

My question still stands: Does it make sense that all the failures — door unlock, liftgate, flashers, the physical button to open the glovebox, "Safety > Power Off" all not working — all failed due to an internal part failure in the steering rack? I don’t know, but find that unlikely.

Steering rack is connected to CAN C which is connected to a lot of components like clock spring, BCM and center display. If steering rack shorts the CANbus it will give a LOT of errors and kill all communication between modules.

On the other side if you disconnect the failing part in this case should be the steering rack all communication (except steering rack) should work again.

 

[KalJoMoS]

There was someone here some time ago also with diagnose to change the non-functioning steering rack by service. If I recall it right there was steering rack wire harness stripped from very odd place and that person attempted to fix it at home and succeeded. Obviously your car is already with the service and you only have the option to agree with the estimate they have given. But that person estimate was much higher in price of the new rack.

 

[TLLMRRJ]

The shaking steering wheel was from before I took it into SC. It is still there.

My question still stands: Does it make sense that all the failures — door unlock, liftgate, flashers, the physical button to open the glovebox, "Safety > Power Off" all not working — all failed due to an internal part failure in the steering rack? I don’t know, but find that unlikely.

What I can tell you is that clearly Tesla is making some very bad design decisions. I had a rear inverter blow while driving recently on my '23 model and it caused the pyro fuse to blow. So the entire car coasted to a stop on the side of the road. Then the LV lithium battery died in about 15 mins and the whole car went dark at midnight on the side of the road, not even hazards worked.

It is impossible to design an EV that doesn't disconnect the HV battery to the whole car when one of 2 inverters shorts out? No. Could they put a higher capacity battery so your car doesn't go completely dark in 15 mins far before the 3 hours it takes for Tesla Roadside to show up? Yes. Do they need to buy low quality inverters that are failing at a very high rate (when you do the searches online, you will see way too many)? No.

So does it surprise me that they made some stupid engineering decision that caused your car to be disabled by a fault in the steering column? Hell no.

 

[tmc42]

I asked if there was any way for the service team to just fix/replace the internal part that failed instead of replacing the entire steering rack, but the service advisor said there was not. It is disappointing that they couldn’t do a component-level repair.

I got my car back from the SC. Everything seems to be working. It was just over 5K for parts, labor, and taxes to remove and replace the steering rack and perform a wheel alignment.

 

[TLLMRRJ]

I asked if there was any way for the service team to just fix/replace the internal part that failed instead of replacing the entire steering rack, but the service advisor said there was not. It is disappointing that they couldn’t do a component-level repair.

I got my car back from the SC. Everything seems to be working. It was just over 5K for parts, labor, and taxes to remove and replace the steering rack and perform a wheel alignment.

That sucks.