Well.....my auto tilt steering wheel seems to be on the fritz. When I put the key in(or take it out) the steering wheel sloooowly moves into position-or sometimes not at all. When I try to manually adjust it, all I hear is a faint clicking noise. This morning, I had to drive with the steering wheel in the upright position (very uncomfortable). When I got to work, it moved into the down position (very slowly). I just pressed the button to turn off the automatic feature so the wheel would remain in the down position (much more comfortable for driving, but not for getting in and out of the vehicle). Has anybody else had this sort of problem? If so, was it the steering wheel motor dying, or was it something simple (like a fuse)? Was fixing it expensive? Please help! I don't want to have to put it in the shop for several days over something like a steering wheel unless I have to!

Thanks!

 

Yes, I had the same problem with my 2001.

There is a small electric motor that powers the tilt wheel. This motor is attached underneath the instrument panel and can be seen in the gap right above the bottom of the instrument panel where the steering wheel passes through the opening.

The tilt motorhousing is steel and the attached gear box is white plastic. This assembly attaches to the bottom of the steering column with four screws that are difficult to remove because of the small clearance between the screws and the bottom of the instrument panel.

I used and offset phillips screw driver and a bunch of patience to remove the screws, you will also be on your back fighting to get to this but it can be done.

Once the screws are out you can remove the motor and disconnect the wiring harness. The wheel did not drop down when I removed the motor.

Next you have two choices, replace the motor with a new one ( think this is about $160.00 from Mazda) or take the motor apart and clean the commutator.

I took the motor apart by removing the steel housing screws. With the housing off the armature is the rotating part inside. The steel housing contains permentant magnets so you will feel some resistnace when you pull the housing off of the armature. The motor brushes ride on the copper commutator surface of the armature

My commutator surface was black from an accumulation of grease and brush dust from wear. I cleaned this off with electrical contact clenaer and polished the copper commutator with some very fine (400 grit) sandpaper. You will notice that there are slots on the commutator, these need to be cleaned out too, I did that with an hobby knife. Put the motor back together and replace the motor on the column.

After that I've had no problem at all with slow tilt/no tilt.