C1B00 Steering moving to the left/right intermittently on a 2010 Hybrid

[anotherfusionowner]

Hello Everyone,

 

After having my tires rotated, I started to experience my steering pulling to the left intermittently and feeling a bit loose. I took it back in to have an alignment done since I have a lifetime agreement at my local pep boys. It did not resolve the issue. I needed to have the PCM updated to fix the wrench light, so I decided to take it in to get diagnosed by the dealership. They are very adamant that the issue is with the rack and pinion, which they tried to get me to replace before. Long story short, it turned out to be an issue with one of my tires. It's been about 4 years since then and I haven't had a single issue with my rack and pinion. They are now trying to charge me $3000 for the repair, but I declined and just got the update and a coolant flush on my engine/mect. When I picked up the car it is now pulling to both the left and the right intermittently. I looked at the notes and it appears the tech crossed rotated the tires. It doesn't appear that the tech did any other diagnostic work to rule out an issue with the sensor.

 

Before I went into the dealership, I ran the codes and took a screenshot. I reset the codes, so I could get my power steering working again. I did have the typical service power steering light come on along with my abs and traction control lights. I am thinking that the issue is a bad steering angle sensor. I wasn't sure at first, but I saw a few youtube videos of other fords having this issue and it turned out to be a sensor issue. I wanted to check and see if anyone has an opinion or has experienced this issue before. If you have any information on possible diagnostics/calibrations I can do through forscan (I have the full license), that would be helpful as well. 

 

here are some of the videos I looked at: (I was having a hard time finding english videos)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWgY7FDNFt0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc59s9JbpDw&t=608s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsjZfI13fLQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed-KsE9m870&t=5s

[dalesql]

There is a steering recall on fusions of that age.  My 2009 hybrid was covered on that.  You can input your vehicles VIN on the NHTSA website to identify all active recalls for your car.   If I had to pay for it, it would have been a couple thousand dollars at the dealership.  the symptoms are loss of power assist, uncommanded steering, or total lockup of steering.   Not sure that's your issue, but it might be. 

[anotherfusionowner]

Unfortunately no, I have been following that issue for a while. The 2010 was not included in the recall, but there has been an open investigation since 2016.

 

The only reason why I question the diagnosis is due to the fact that many people have replaced the rack and pinion and still continued to have issues. It seems like the rnp is very sensitive to issues related to tires/suspension etc.