2011 - 2018 Explorer Power Steering Issue | Page 6 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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We got our Explorer back early. They did the fan reprogram and TSB on loud rain noise on front roof panel. Only had it back two days but all is good so far.

Tropicvi, good luck with yours.
I assume this is the Explorer XLT that you show as being on order in your profile? ;)
Let us know later if the rain noise fix worked for you.

Peter
 



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My Mom's 2011 Explorer started having this problem just recently. It's happened twice in the last few days. We'll see what the dealer says.
 






Scary Situation To Be In

I, too, have a 2011 Ford Explorer with 19000 miles. I just had the same thing happen last week. The terrain management system fault came on then the power steering fault and then I lost power steering at 55 MPH. It was a scary situation and very upsetting The vehicle has been at the dealer for a week and they have been back and forth on the phone with Ford with no results for a fix. I'm near the panic point because my family leaves on vacation in three days and that is the vehicle we need to take. Besides having this fault issue Ford hasn't been willing to offer a loaner vehicle. Even if it is fixed at the last minute, should I trust putting my family in it to drive safely 500 miles? I'm very nervous about this. I bought this vehicle to keep my kids safe in after being in a bad car accident and spending 6 months recuperating. I don't play around with safety issues.
 






Funny thing is this happens right before my mom and sister head up to Canada for 3 weeks. Hopefully we can get it fixed tomorrow. If not, it's going to be a risky drive.
 






19 cases of steering failures documented in this thread alone, on 2011 Explorers exclusively, over a 12 month period. One documented failure every three weeks. Seems my situation is the only one documented here, that involved injury and loss of vehicle, as a direct result. I have tabulated your individual cases as best I could given the limited personal information displayed. If you would care to share more via private message, such as City, State, build date, odometer and final resolution It may be of help to more when I have it all together,
 






19 cases of steering failures documented in this thread alone, on 2011 Explorers exclusively, over a 12 month period. One documented failure every three weeks. Seems my situation is the only one documented here, that involved injury and loss of vehicle, as a direct result. I have tabulated your individual cases as best I could given the limited personal information displayed. If you would care to share more via private message, such as City, State, build date, odometer and final resolution It may be of help to more when I have it all together,

I have added in cases from arfc.com site, which also includes NHTSA data, so now at 38 cases in 12 months, of documented steering failures (that does not include multiple failures on one vehicle) Alarming number.
 






As mentioned in an earlier post, I experienced the exact same loss of power steering as everyone else in this thread. I took my Ex to the dealer Wednesday at 8 a.m and picked it up today (Thursday) at 4 p.m......all fixed! Hats off to my dealer (Barile Ford in Valparaiso, In).....excellent at pinpointing the problem and fixing it.

For those who have a dealer who tells them they have no clue what the problem may be or they can't duplicate it I'm going to post exactly what's on my receipt. According to the service manager the problem with the power steering is stored in the vehicle, even though I took it to the dealer two days after the loss of steering they found the problem stored in the cars computer (or whatever).

My receipt says:

Customer reports that pwr steering failed in the last week, customer restarted car to get it back
Found that lack of power steering assist found that no service messages or TSB's found that U300 96Perform
Pin point test C1 Yes internal failure in steering gear
Remove and replace power steering gear assembly and set toe, roadtest and recheck.

The parts that were replaced:
Gear Assembly - FP# BB5Z-3504-HE
Core Return - FP# BB5Z-3504-HE

Hope this helps someone who runs into a roadblock with their dealership.
I was lucky...like I said, I was the third EX with this same problem that they dealt with, so they knew what to look for.
 






Hummm.. My insurance adjuster called this morning, one week after the vehicle was left with the dealer, to let me know that Ford's service department is REFUSING to do diagnostic tests on the car. The dealer apparently believes it is a simple car going off road accident, and will not do anything that may prove there was a defective component on the vehicle. And this is not the customer asking, this is the insurance adjuster asking to have diagnostics run. Looks like Ford Customer Service does not exist.
 






I sent the link to this discussion thread to the service manager at my dealership. I was quickly contacted and the steering rack was replaced at no cost...
...I feel that my local dealer had my satisfaction in mind with how everything was handled. Yeah it sucks when a new car breaks down, I am glad it broke while it was still under warranty and I have no regrets at all about our choice in the Explorer.
We got our Explorer back early. They did the fan reprogram and TSB on loud rain noise on front roof panel. Only had it back two days but all is good so far...
JFE, mbowsher, & Wightmn,

Thanks for updating us; I’m happy your dealer took care of you.

I, too, have a 2011 Ford Explorer with 19000 miles. I just had the same thing happen last week...
AJGROGG,

I want to offer my assistance by escalating this to your Regional Customer Service Manager. For me to help, please send a PM with your contact information, VIN, dealer name/state, and mileage.

Funny thing is this happens right before my mom and sister head up to Canada for 3 weeks. Hopefully we can get it fixed tomorrow...
Have you had a chance to go to the dealer, willied? I have your details from before, so please send me a PM with your current mileage and I’ll arrange a follow-up call.

...I took my Ex to the dealer Wednesday at 8 a.m and picked it up today (Thursday) at 4 p.m......all fixed! Hats off to my dealer (Barile Ford in Valparaiso, In).....excellent at pinpointing the problem and fixing it...
I’m really glad to see your concern was fixed, tvee; thanks for posting your experience. :)

Hummm.. My insurance adjuster called this morning, one week after the vehicle was left with the dealer, to let me know that Ford's service department is REFUSING to do diagnostic tests on the car...
tropicvi,

Even though I can’t help, I highly recommend calling the Virgin Islands Customer Assistance Centre @ +1-800-841-3673 (FORD) for further assistance.

Cory
 






never again

just an update, excluding the guy on this site named Cory it seems everyone at FOMOCO is burying their heads in the sand on this one. After 3 trips to the dealer and the steering problem happening 4 times I simply refused to take back the vehicle. It is clear that this is a very serious problem with dire consequences for all explorer drivers. I was forced to pay the full amount to get out of my lease because I was not willing to gamble my family's lives for a 5th time. Ford was. The customer service department is full of useless, rotten people unwilling to help. I invited them all to drive my vehicle for a month with their families in it - no takers. I was able to escalate from some bimbo named Kristina who kept saying she would get back to me in 2 business days (still waiting for that call 6 days later bieatch) to some clown named Heysus sp? Jesus told me at the end of my call when I asked for his boss I had two options, I could call the better business bureau or an attorney and promptly hung up the telephone on me. He is supposedly an Operations Manager for FOMOCO and at the highest level of the customer service food chain. I feel America needs to hear my story, considering media campaign and letters as soon as I have time. I do like the fact I have had no steering issues yet in my new Honda. Goodbye forever Ford, you will hear more from me!
 






Have you had a chance to go to the dealer, willied? I have your details from before, so please send me a PM with your current mileage and I’ll arrange a follow-up call.

Cory

We got it fixed. Thanks for asking.
 






just an update, excluding the guy on this site named Cory it seems everyone at FOMOCO is burying their heads in the sand on this one...
That’s a shame you weren’t able to see this resolved before turning in your ride, broncoford. Please don’t hesitate to send me a PM in the future so I can lend a hand in restoring your faith in Ford.

We got it fixed. Thanks for asking.
That’s great, willied; I appreciate the update.

Cory
 






Apparently FORD does not staff their customer service Center phone lines during business hours... all you get is a recording.
 






Apparently FORD does not staff their customer service Center phone lines during business hours... all you get is a recording.
I want to lend a hand by forwarding this to the Virgin Islands Customer Assistance Centre, tropicvi. Please send me a PM with your full contact information, VIN, dealer details, and approximate mileage.

Cory
 






Power Steering Assist Failure

Amazing to find the long list of Explorer owners that have had the same problem that I have had on my 2011 Ford Explorer Limired.

My 1st incident of Power Steering Assist Failure (and Advance Trac Fault) occurred in early May, 2012 with about 14000 miles on the car. Warning signal and loss of power steering on a mountain road no less. With much effort I pulled to the side of the road, turned off the car, restarted it and the power steering was back. The Advance Trac warning went off after about 30 seconds. Took it to the dealer (Benson Ford in Easley SC) the next day. They checked with Ford and found that this did have a failure history and that there was a computer update to fix it. A fault code did show up on the computer when the Dealer checked(exact details I wasn't given) but it did not show up under "Error Codes" when I checked the dash display. After some issues with downloading the update, the Dealer kept the car a day to test drive it. All was fine until this past weekend (6/16/2012) when the exact same thing happened with now 16000 miles on the car. The car is at the dealer today.

Probably unrelated but in April I had the Explorer at the dealer for a recall related to the fan motor and potential corrosion of electrical contacts. The fix for that was a computer undate which made little sense to me based on the stated problem...

Updating the status, dealer determined that the steering gear and rack needed to be replaced. Initially, the dealer indicated that parts were hard to locate but after one day did locate a new steering gear. Replaced the gear and perfomed alignment (and washed the car!). Not particularly happy that a steering gear could fail on a new car, but very pleased with the Benson Easley service department (Anthony in particular).
 






Looks like dealer has been advised by FORD to suggest there never was a problem, since no codes were found other than codes indication an accident happened... uh.. the car hit a pole as a result of system failure, of course those sensors responded at some point. The dealer says there is a "Black Box" which records all kinds of data, that only FORD can read, not dealers. But insist the car has to be repaired before that can be done. Also, if the dealer says it was an accident the dealer does not have to provide a loaner. Insurance payment for a loaner does not meet local rental rates. Looks like this car may have to go into storage for a protracted legal battle, since the dealer is also threateneing storage charges now.
 






Looks like dealer has been advised by FORD to suggest there never was a problem, since no codes were found other than codes indication an accident happened... uh.. the car hit a pole as a result of system failure, of course those sensors responded at some point. The dealer says there is a "Black Box" which records all kinds of data, that only FORD can read, not dealers. But insist the car has to be repaired before that can be done. Also, if the dealer says it was an accident the dealer does not have to provide a loaner. Insurance payment for a loaner does not meet local rental rates. Looks like this car may have to go into storage for a protracted legal battle, since the dealer is also threateneing storage charges now.
I seems that Ford may be trying to put this off hoping that it will go away. I don't think that the other members on here that experienced the same failure had error codes stored either.
To me it makes no sense that the vehicle has to be repaired before the Black Box can be accessed. I think that I would want an independent representative to be there if and when they do look at the info from the Black Box. The dealer is also likely getting pressure from HQ not to admit to anything that would indicate that it wasn't just an accident due to driver error.
At least you have posts on this Forum that may be able to back up your claim.
Good luck.

Peter
 






At teh request of my attorney, the dealer provided the printout (2 screen shots) of diagnostic, stating there were no issues found everything passed. However, reading the detail there are several questions. in the Power Steering Control Module (PSCM) a U0415:00-08 code showed, which they wrote is loss of communication. To the right the side of the printout is shows Status 08 (Not Current DTC) - Fault previously detected, not currently present. Does this have to do with previous posts in this thread where the fault clears it self by turning the key off then back on? if so how can the dealer say no fault existed at the time of the accident. The key had been turned off and on several times by the tow truck driver for starters.

Other codes that showed on the screen shot were
U0452:68-28-ABS
B10D7:05-48-BCM
B1193:00-AB-OSCM
P2196:00-64-PCM
P2198:00-64-PCM
B00A0:09-8B-RCM

ANy input from anyone on this??
 






As I stated in the other thread (which was made a sticky), the NTSB has started an investigation into this issue. I would encourage anyone having this problem to contact the NTSB and file a complaint. The more reports they get, the more seriously they will take the issue.
 



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