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The lord giveth...(steering assist reduced pd3+)

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Picked up last night and have been non-stop smiles as car was perfect ((vin 77xxx). I feel the Tesla gods have smiled upon me.

Wake up this morning and drive two hours to a nearby city for a business trip. She’s a dream on the highway.

Set her up on the destination charger at hotel while I prep for meeting. Two hours later I head outside to go to meeting and I get traction control disabled, aeb disabled, and steering assist reduced warnings.

Duty calls and time is short, so I hop in a lyft to make my meeting and read on my phone as I travel that this might be corrected through rebooting, so I’m feeling relatively at ease about the situation.

Meeting goes well and I lyft back to hotel. Try soft and hard reboots...no luck. Get on with road side assistance and they walk me through hard and soft reboots. Still no luck. They tell me I could drive it with first two warnings but the third has made the car unsteerable.

Now waiting for tow truck (1 hour away from here, 2 hours from home).

Why, oh Tesla gods, have you forsaken me!!!

I’ll keep you updated. Hoping there is an isolated issue and that there is a fix.
 
Is the Model 3 really unsteerable without power assist? I always thought it had a conventional electric assist power steering rack. Seems extremely dangerous if that’s not the case. What if it went out while driving? I know Infiniti has a drive by wire steering system on the q50 and the “steering lockup” issue makes it sound sketchy as hell.
 
It took a heckuva a lot of muscle to get it out of the parking spot and lined up to get it on the flatbed. Frankly, I wasn’t sure if we’d be able too. So didn’t seem drivable to me.
Just need to hit the gym more. Haha
Seriously though power steering is really only necessary at low speeds. Once you start moving it gets way easier.
 
I got "Steering assist reduced" yesterday. I was parked right behind a garbage can (20-24 inches), and when I shifted into Drive, it immediately showed "Stop" on the display (I think replacing the D). Anyhow, I didn't realize what was happening, so I tried to shift into D again. Then I figured it out. I turned the wheel quickly to avoid the garbage can as I pulled away from the curb, and got the "Steering assist reduced" error. I am slightly fuzzy on the exact sequence of events. I wonder if turning the wheel quickly and fully might have caused the error.

When driving, I did not perceive any change in steering effort. I tried switching steering modes, but that didn't clear it. Thumbwheel reboot did not clear it. However, I stopped at the store on my way home, and when I started the car again, the message was gone. Also gone this morning. With any luck this was a transient condition.
 
I've had a couple manual steering cars in my life, but I can assure you that it takes more than just hitting the gym :) to drive a car that supposed to have power steering when it fails. You're fighting the dead power assist plus the normal steering resistance and cars that were made to have no power assist usually had larger steering wheels so you'd have more leverage and probably also had a better gear ratio in the steering box as well (though I don't know that for sure.)
 
I've had a couple manual steering cars in my life, but I can assure you that it takes more than just hitting the gym :) to drive a car that supposed to have power steering when it fails. You're fighting the dead power assist plus the normal steering resistance and cars that were made to have no power assist usually had larger steering wheels so you'd have more leverage and probably also had a better gear ratio in the steering box as well (though I don't know that for sure.)
Yep. That is correct.
Older automobiles without power steering have larger steering ratio (more turns lock to lock) and typically have bigger steering.
Also steering gearbox design is optimized to have least friction too.

I have wrestled with cars/jeeps/trucks without power steering enough years overseas. It is funny now, when you see those big steering wheels with diameter that is few feet.. :)
 
Yep. That is correct.
Older automobiles without power steering have larger steering ratio (more turns lock to lock) and typically have bigger steering.
Also steering gearbox design is optimized to have least friction too.

I have wrestled with cars/jeeps/trucks without power steering enough years overseas. It is funny now, when you see those big steering wheels with diameter that is few feet.. :)
We had an 1969 Audi 60 with completely manual steering it was German model (metric on everything) that we brought over to the US. Anyway, four on the tree, manual steering, big steering wheel for a little car, nothing fancy about that one. It was fun to drive though.
 
Yep. That is correct.
Older automobiles without power steering have larger steering ratio (more turns lock to lock) and typically have bigger steering.
Also steering gearbox design is optimized to have least friction too.

I have wrestled with cars/jeeps/trucks without power steering enough years overseas. It is funny now, when you see those big steering wheels with diameter that is few feet.. :)
Pepperidge Farms remembers having a knob affixed to the steering wheel to help get leverage and making it faster rotating the steering wheel the > full rotation just to do a "normal" turn.

Military_SK_Suicid88.jpg


It's a bit more esthetic based in the above photo, but I couldn't find any good photos of large trucks or old tractors where they were used quite a bit and for very good reason.
 
Yep. That is correct.
Older automobiles without power steering have larger steering ratio (more turns lock to lock) and typically have bigger steering.
Also steering gearbox design is optimized to have least friction too.

I have wrestled with cars/jeeps/trucks without power steering enough years overseas. It is funny now, when you see those big steering wheels with diameter that is few feet.. :)
Hard to port helmsman! Aye, aye, Captain...