TrackDayHookey
Member
Follow up: I followed the suggestion to do an executive escalation and it paid off. Two days after I escalated, Tesla found a steering rack for me and did the repair under good will. They also replaced the carpet in the back that was moldy from rain filling the rear hatch on occasion, and lots of other wear items were replaced. So "go ugly early" is how you get results, sadly. I still recommend that anyone with a recall-era S get the issue resolved ASAP.
Additional follow up: A year after the rack was replaced, the power steering has gone stupid again. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't when you get in the car. A software update came along which caused the dead steering to start working again for another week, then dead again. This doesn't appear to be the failed bolt problem. Turning the car off for a while and back on again, or getting a software update doesn't cause bolts to grow back together, but it does sometimes cause the power steering to work again. The car only has 33K miles on it at this point, and has had many things on it replaced, some of them at great expense. I have a 25 year old Miata with 250K miles on it, and the steering still works just fine, so this seems like a problem the car industry as a whole has solved.
I tried Tesla support, no answer in over a week. Trying the direct approach with the service center than replaced the rack a year ago. I expect indifference and the irritating need to escalate the issue, unless they got a new culture and all new people in the last year. The quality and service seem to be in a race to the bottom.