Steering Assist Reduced

[justinhow]

Interesting news article indeed!
Re steering ground/electrics - this looks appropriate YT: Where is the Steering Rack grounded on a Tesla Model 3?
If I look into this on my car do I just power down (Controls > Safety > Power Off) the car and then good to go?

 

[arekux]

At least he has a warranty. Mine went out before I had the issue.

Is your model 3 rwd model?

 

[justinhow]

So my Model 3 2021 AWD LR has gone into the Glasgow Tesla Service centre to be fixed and it should all be under the 4 year warranty.
Fortunately it was working again (i.e. intermittent fault) so I could drive it up there myself without any problem.
I have a loaner Model 3 from them whilst it is away.
I never tried to look at whether this was a corrosion issue like some others reported.

 

[justinhow]

Well feedback on this issue with my Model 3.
According to the Glasgow Tesla mechanic looking at my car this issue looks like it was a firmware update not completing correctly.
After it was installed it failed to reboot part of the electronics/computer which that left that part 'hungup', it not having be re-initialised correctly after the update.
This fixed itself a day later by either a firmware update or it righting itself for some reason. Timing is not entirely clear on this. He also said that this part of the system is not re-initialised by the 10 sec standard reboot, and would really require either another firmware update, or a Tesla mobile technician to initiate a hard reset. He accepted that there was an issue with some cars and power steering failure (water ingress and then corrosion on the electrical connectors and earthing) but said that had been fixed by the time my car was manufactured (2021 Model 3).
Most of this makes sense to me although I think the system had fixed itself before the 2nd firmware update arrived. Difficult to be sure though.
Anyway essentially no fault found. Waiting for final confirmation today.

 

[justinhow]

Just had an update from the mechanic - problem has recurred and he is investigating further - so ignore most of last post!

 

[DrChaos]

Just had an update from the mechanic - problem has recurred and he is investigating further - so ignore most of last post!

The firmware update might have failed because some diagnostic or initialization failed because of a hardware problem.

 

[justinhow]

I am not sure there was much or any real evidence for the firmware theory. I think as the fault occurred on the same day as the fault it lead him to this theory that they were related. As I hinted at above I am not at all sure the timings were quite right and specifically that the 2nd firmware install corrected the fault. I think that was not chronologically quite right and the fault corrected itself just because it was an intermittent fault.

 

[z0lt3c]

Sometimes the steering assist firmware cannot be update because power was lost to the steering assist assembly during an update. It's another potential indicator of a bad ground or other wiring/corrosion issue.

 

[justinhow]

Picked th car up today.
It was apparently the steering rack controller (electronics) which was intermittently failing to wake up so had obviously developed some fault. This is attached to, and an integral part, of the steering rack which was therefore all changed.
The mechanic said the rack will be returned to the supplier for analysis.
He also said this has been seen before and is a known potential fault (although I have no idea how common).

 

[z0lt3c]

an integral part

It's not really an integral part. Tesla just refuses to repair; they rip and replace. Steering assist assembly electrical problems are common.

 

[wmlwml]

Picked th car up today.
It was apparently the steering rack controller (electronics) which was intermittently failing to wake up so had obviously developed some fault. This is attached to, and an integral part, of the steering rack which was therefore all changed.
The mechanic said the rack will be returned to the supplier for analysis.
He also said this has been seen before and is a known potential fault (although I have no idea how common).

For the original issue, were you having intermittent issues, where the "Steering assist reduced" would show up but power steering was still working?

My fresh out of warranty 2020 M3 RWD is having a similar issue where the error shows up but the power steering is fine half of the time (I do feel a "click" when first trying to turn the wheel, and then the error shows up). The other half of the time, I have no power steering or regen + lots of errors (Traction control disabled, Vehicle hold feature unavailable, Stability Control disabled, Steer assist disabled), which makes the car impossible to pull out of a parking spot.

Luckily I haven't had power steering fail on me through part of a drive, only at the beginning of a drive.

The service center is telling me that the x190 and x191 connectors (the main and redundant power supply connectors) were powered and grounded, which indicates that the steering rack has an internal failure. They want me to replace the entire steering rack for 4.4k (including 1.5k labor), but I asked them to check for corrosion on the connectors + steering rack grounding (part G098 I think).

Any suggestions for what else I could ask for?