There seems to be a high failure rate in the Ion community with GM's electric power steering. Mine decided to go out while going around a cloverleaf getting on the highway. If my small stature wife had been driving, I'm sure she would have driven right off the road. The problem is that its an intermittent issue and hard for the dealer to diagnose and the repair is well over a thousand dollars as you have to pull the entire steering column.

This brings up my point, is it safe to make braking systems and steering systems electric? The abrubt and random failure of these systems is dangerous IMO. I'm surprised there hasn't been a recall.

 

VW has been using electric steering. For how long I don't know, but I think they have been using it longer than GM. Also, it is on the G6 and a good friend of mine has one and has yet to have any problems with it that I know of.

 

I prefer a "mechanical" connection even if just a backup on Steering at the very least. I'll avoid "electric steering" vehicles as long as I can.

 

Same thing happened to my neighbour's Malibu Maxx ... steering would just suddenly lose boost, and sometimes only in one direction. They had it towed to the dealer twice, the first time they just reset the computer and thought that would solve it. I'm not sure what they replaced the second time but hopefully the found the problem..

 

Thats the problem. If my 110lb wife is going around a turn and it looses boost, it will probably take her right off the road as she doesnt have the arm strength to catch it. Shouldn't there be a backup system? I just dont see how they can allow that and for now, I cant let my wife drive the car.

 

Hmmm, I guess i'm confused as to how this "electric steering" operates.

I was assuming it's like a drive-by-wire? Instead of the Hydraulic Power Assist that we've had for ages (and worked perfectly fine).

 

Theres a motor on the steering column that gives you the boost that you used to get with a hydraulic system. Should the computer deem the motor isn't working, it shuts it off without warning. If you happen to be going around a turn, the steering suddenly stiffens up and you have to put some muscle into it to keep in on course. It can be quite dangerous, especially if your not expecting it an dont have a good grip on the wheel.

 

woah, i just did some reading on the Malibu Maxx's and I've found a few posts on gminsider about people complaining about 04 and 05 Maxx's... and a few other TSB on various problems.. I'm starting to wonder if thats why they are priced so low on the used market... I haven't seen anyone complain about a 06 or later though.

Is GM making a Maxx off the new platform?

 

What is the advantage of the electrical system? Other than GM's self-failure tactics built on reasoning of "Well, the current way of steering is almost flawless... Let's invent something else instead."

 

Less power loss and slightly better mpg.

 

GM isn't the only company to use electric power steering assist, either. I believe Toyota has it, VW, I think Honda may, and I'm sure there are a few others.

I wonder what the actual statistics are for the failure rate of EPS vs. hydraulic systems leaking to the point of no assist, or hoses breaking, or...

 

i have it on my cobalt and love it. 20k an no problems yet

 

Yea, one could argue, electic assist is the way to go, if properly implented.

The argument is hydraulic systems has all these hoses, pumps, vacuums, and fluids that can go wrong, vs electric, which has a sensor, a black box electronic controller, wires and an electric motor directly mounted to the rack..

If you can "trust" the electronics and motors, and its properly implemented to "feel good", then electric seems the way to go.. Theoretically, you can program the steering assist however you would want. But hydraulic is tried and tested and very well understood and accepted.

Steer by wire is probably still a ways away.. Actually that can be very cool too, if done properly - you are no long constrained by physical linkages, and theoretically have even more control on what kind of feedback you want transmitted. Obviously it'll have to be a very robust system with multiple backups, like they have on airplanes.

 

I've had hydraulic systems fail and they ain't easy to steer either. I assume the back-up manual mode is the same in either case?

 

Mine started acting up at 38K miles, just over a month after I got out of warranty