Need some advice on this situation. Car has now been at the dealer for 3 weeks. Last week they called and said the problem was a ground wire. Said that they found a record of the car being in an accident which caused them to look for a grounding issue and they found a wire connection that had been painted during a repair. They said they cleaned it and all should be ok.

Before we could pick the car up they called and said the problem had occurred again and they thought it was heat related (it was a hot day).

This time they said it was the control module / power steering assist motor (Mazda part KD316788ZB). They said the part would be $1,400 and the labor to install and program $400.00 ($1,800 total).

I asked if they knew this was the issue and they said they weren't sure it was. I found the part on eBay but am very worried this is not the fix. Any ideas?

 

Need some advice on this situation. Car has now been at the dealer for 3 weeks. Last week they called and said the problem was a ground wire. Said that they found a record of the car being in an accident which caused them to look for a grounding issue and they found a wire connection that had been painted during a repair. They said they cleaned it and all should be ok.

Before we could pick the car up they called and said the problem had occurred again and they thought it was heat related (it was a hot day).

This time they said it was the control module / power steering assist motor (Mazda part KD316788ZB). They said the part would be $1,400 and the labor to install and program $400.00 ($1,800 total).

I asked if they knew this was the issue and they said they weren't sure it was. I found the part on eBay but am very worried this is not the fix. Any ideas?

 

Thank you for your continued help!

We finally got the car back and it is running. Actually Mazda USA assisted me, and the dealership, in troubleshooting. Now I am wondering if this is the true fix.

Here's what they occurred:

1. Initially the dealer could find no issue, had their tech drive it home each night, etc..
2. My daughter picked the car up and, not long after leaving the dealership, the issues happened again (multiple warning lights, hard to steer, etc.. She turned the car off and restarted and got it back to the dealer.
3. After a couple of weeks the dealer said they thought there might be a short due to a painted over place (they said the car had previously had body repair and the body shop had painted where they shouldn't have.
4. After cleaning this up the problem occurred again, at their shop.
5. The next day they called and said the KD31-67-88ZB part was defective and wanted $1,400 for the part (it's a JTEKT CONTROL MODULE. POWER STEERING ASSIST MOTOR). Labor to install was $450.00.
6. I found the part online and bought it (saved on it) and the dealer installed.
7. Mazda USA said the ODBC error code that they saw was U0415, which told them this was the problem.
8. They say that they could not see this code prior to cleaning the ground connection but, once they had cleaned it up and the problem occurred, this became apparent.

Anyway, the U0415 code seems to be "Invalid Data Received From Anti-Lock Brake System (ABS) Control Module". I cannot understand if the U0415 Code is somehow related to this part.

What are your thoughts?

 

After running into this issue with my 2013 and 2015 CX-5s, I would like to share that the failure of the Power Steering EMS motor is greatly affected by temperature. Initial failure of both of mine happened on the first, really cold nights of the late fall (major vibration of the steering wheel when you try to turn it at all and error light). With both of mine, the next day the temp went back up and the problem went away. Cold nights came back and so did the steering problem. Straightforward repair and I will be doing it myself next time!