Power steering light on dash

Russ59 · Post by **Russ59** » Sun Mar 22, 2020 2:31 pm

Last week my power steering light came on, so obviously no power steering, I turned engine off and back on again and the light went out

This has happened a couple of times but now the light doesn’t go out at all, so now I’m stuck. I’m not that technically minded to start stripping the steering column down, certain things yeah but not something this complex.
Is there a make do fix or is it going to cost me a lot of £££’s ??
Just when I was thinking of selling

Lowzed · Post by **Lowzed** » Sun Mar 22, 2020 5:18 pm

same as, i think the car knows its being sold

ive had the codes read and it comes back as a open circuit on the instrument cluster module

which is strange, just trying to get to the bottom of it my self

if i clear the code and turn the car off (so car hasn't moved or steering touched) wait ten minutes and the light is back on and code is back.

firebobby · Post by **firebobby** » Sun Mar 22, 2020 9:06 pm

My car did this last year and it turned out to be the ECU on the motor. I removed it and sent it away to ECU testing, they did there magic and once re fitted...my steering was back to normal

Tamir · Post by **Tamir** » Mon Mar 23, 2020 7:40 am

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=119340
I've had this issue for a while, hope you can maybe find some help in my EPS failure topic. ^

Russ59 · Post by **Russ59** » Mon Mar 23, 2020 11:30 am

firebobby wrote: Sun Mar 22, 2020 9:06 pm My car did this last year and it turned out to be the ECU on the motor. I removed it and sent it away to ECU testing, they did there magic and once re fitted...my steering was back to normal

How much was the cost of repair??

firebobby · Post by **firebobby** » Mon Mar 23, 2020 9:51 pm

Russ59 wrote: Mon Mar 23, 2020 11:30 am
firebobby wrote: Sun Mar 22, 2020 9:06 pm My car did this last year and it turned out to be the ECU on the motor. I removed it and sent it away to ECU testing, they did there magic and once re fitted...my steering was back to normal

How much was the cost of repair??

I think it was around the £300 mark. I had no power steering and the sports button didn't work.
You can remove the motor without taking the column out, if it is the ECU ?

Russ59 · Post by **Russ59** » Mon Mar 23, 2020 10:30 pm

firebobby wrote: Mon Mar 23, 2020 9:51 pm
Russ59 wrote: Mon Mar 23, 2020 11:30 am
firebobby wrote: Sun Mar 22, 2020 9:06 pm My car did this last year and it turned out to be the ECU on the motor. I removed it and sent it away to ECU testing, they did there magic and once re fitted...my steering was back to normal

How much was the cost of repair??
I think it was around the £300 mark. I had no power steering and the sports button didn't work.
You can remove the motor without taking the column out, if it is the ECU ?

My mechanic uses that company and they aren’t far away from us, he rang them when I dropped the car off to him this morning and they said what the problem was
But who knows now when it will get done after Boris’s speech tonight

firebobby · Post by **firebobby** » Mon Mar 23, 2020 10:50 pm

Russ59 wrote: Mon Mar 23, 2020 10:30 pm
firebobby wrote: Mon Mar 23, 2020 9:51 pm
Russ59 wrote: Mon Mar 23, 2020 11:30 am

How much was the cost of repair??
I think it was around the £300 mark. I had no power steering and the sports button didn't work.
You can remove the motor without taking the column out, if it is the ECU ?
My mechanic uses that company and they aren’t far away from us, he rang them when I dropped the car off to him this morning and they said what the problem was
But who knows now when it will get done after Boris’s speech tonight

Its a bit fiddly to get the motor out, but it will come out on its own. They had it back t me in less than a week, and you get life time guarantee on the repaired ECU.

tomjonesBT33 · Post by **tomjonesBT33** » Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:38 pm

Same thing happened to my '04. Also turned out to be the EPS ecu. I bought a used EPS from fleabay and fitted it. Difficult space to work in, but it can be done without removing the steering column. Also required reprogramming the newly fitted EPS with my car's VIN. Total cost to me was $77USD, but I did all of the work myself including the coding.

Tamir · Post by **Tamir** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 12:10 pm

tomjones20194 wrote: Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:38 pm Same thing happened to my '04. Also turned out to be the EPS ecu. I bought a used EPS from fleabay and fitted it. Difficult space to work in, but it can be done without removing the steering column. Also required reprogramming the newly fitted EPS with my car's VIN. Total cost to me was $77USD, but I did all of the work myself including the coding.

firebobby wrote: Mon Mar 23, 2020 9:51 pm
Its a bit fiddly to get the motor out, but it will come out on its own. They had it back t me in less than a week, and you get life time guarantee on the repaired ECU.

What are the symptoms when it's the ECU faulty? Does it make any sense if the power steering works only when the engine temp reaches ~90~ degree Celsius?

tomjonesBT33 · Post by **tomjonesBT33** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 4:18 pm

with mine, I was not able to communicate with the EPS module via INPA or any of the standard BMW tools when the error light in the dash game on. I got an IFC-0009 error or something like that, which mean the ecu is not responding. Also mine had intermittent error for a few days before the error light came on and stayed on.

If you can definitely correlate your unit’s intermittent behavior with temperature, then it’s possible that you have a bad connector or cable going to the Ecu. Temp could cause an intermittent open/closed circuit if there is a slight break in the wiring. There have been a couple of thread about this before.

Russ59 · Post by **Russ59** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 5:28 pm

Mine isn’t heat related, engine can be hot or cold and the light now stays on, it was intermittent to start with but then just stayed on.

tomjonesBT33 · Post by **tomjonesBT33** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 7:26 pm

Russ59 wrote: Thu Mar 26, 2020 5:28 pm Mine isn’t heat related, engine can be hot or cold and the light now stays on, it was intermittent to start with but then just stayed on.

Try connecting to the EPS with INPA. If you get a communication error the EPS is bad.

Russ59 · Post by **Russ59** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 8:46 pm

tomjones20194 wrote: Thu Mar 26, 2020 7:26 pm
Russ59 wrote: Thu Mar 26, 2020 5:28 pm Mine isn’t heat related, engine can be hot or cold and the light now stays on, it was intermittent to start with but then just stayed on.
Try connecting to the EPS with INPA. If you get a communication error the EPS is bad.

Mine is in the hands of the mechanic I use, I’m having it rebuilt at ECU testing.

firebobby · Post by **firebobby** » Thu Mar 26, 2020 10:20 pm

Tamir wrote: Thu Mar 26, 2020 12:10 pm
tomjones20194 wrote: Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:38 pm Same thing happened to my '04. Also turned out to be the EPS ecu. I bought a used EPS from fleabay and fitted it. Difficult space to work in, but it can be done without removing the steering column. Also required reprogramming the newly fitted EPS with my car's VIN. Total cost to me was $77USD, but I did all of the work myself including the coding.

firebobby wrote: Mon Mar 23, 2020 9:51 pm
Its a bit fiddly to get the motor out, but it will come out on its own. They had it back t me in less than a week, and you get life time guarantee on the repaired ECU.
What are the symptoms when it's the ECU faulty? Does it make any sense if the power steering works only when the engine temp reaches ~90~ degree Celsius?

Symptoms on mine were... no PS, the light on on the dash and no sports button.

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