Rav4 Power Steering Intermittent Failure

[Browny]

:( My 2007 D4D Rav4 has an intermttent fault on the power steering which will bring the P/S fault light up on the dash and also stop the power steering from working. The first time it happened it took three attempts of switching on the car before it started to work, the garage looked at it and could find nothing. Three weeks later it happened again and took an hour of trying it before it finaly started working, it is now at the garage getting checked.

Has anyone else had this problem??????

[anchorman]

Hello Browny

Welcome to the club.

There have been a few reports of problems with steering on later RAVs with electric drive motors. As far as I can remember they have all been instances of pull rather than not working at all. The problem is that it is all new stuff to the dealers and after checking the obvious they rely heavily on Technical Services to get feedback from "somewhere else" - presumably Japan. The most obvious place to start is with the electrical connections as that will cause the symptoms you describe along with the warning light. After that it starts getting into the ECU that controls it but they are normally very reliable.

I guess your problem will be if you lose the assistance in motion rather than at start up. It will always default to manual but it may be a surprise depending on where you are.

I think you can only let them try to sort it but get them to acknowledge in writing that you have commenced with attempting to resolve the issue in case you get to rejecting the vehicle.

Good luck.

[Browny]

Hello Browny

Welcome to the club.

There have been a few reports of problems with steering on later RAVs with electric drive motors. As far as I can remember they have all been instances of pull rather than not working at all. The problem is that it is all new stuff to the dealers and after checking the obvious they rely heavily on Technical Services to get feedback from "somewhere else" - presumably Japan. The most obvious place to start is with the electrical connections as that will cause the symptoms you describe along with the warning light. After that it starts getting into the ECU that controls it but they are normally very reliable.

I guess your problem will be if you lose the assistance in motion rather than at start up. It will always default to manual but it may be a surprise depending on where you are.

I think you can only let them try to sort it but get them to acknowledge in writing that you have commenced with attempting to resolve the issue in case you get to rejecting the vehicle.

Good luck.

Just like to say thankyou for your advice. The fault luckily has never occured whilst driving, it has only occured from the intial start. It is a difficult fault to trace I appreciate especially when its intermittent but it is starting to knock my confidence in what is a fantastic car. This is my third Rav4 and have been more than impressed especially with the new model, fingers crossed they sort the problem before I start to turn on my much loved Rav4.

[shcm]

Hello Browny,

Just to add to Anchorman's comments:

If the ECU is getting as far as putting the warning light on, then I would expect it to have DTCs (fault codes) stored in it, regardless of whether the warning light goes out later.

The DTCs are almost always non-volatile (unless it's the steering ECU itself that has lost its marbles) until cleared by the garage and the stored codes should be pointing them to roughly where the fault is in the system.

Might be worth asking the garage what DTCs were stored (assuming they've looked!), unless they did something brain dead like clearing them from the ECU before reading them!

Cheers

[aravdriver]

:( My 2007 D4D Rav4 has an intermttent fault on the power steering which will bring the P/S fault light up on the dash and also stop the power steering from working. The first time it happened it took three attempts of switching on the car before it started to work, the garage looked at it and could find nothing. Three weeks later it happened again and took an hour of trying it before it finaly started working, it is now at the garage getting checked.

Has anyone else had this problem??????

Hi, I also have a 2007 Rav4 cruiser L, had thie problem about three weeks ago, no power steering, PS, ABS, VSC and 4WD lights all on. Took to workshop, they said they had to reset the ''codes'', drove away, fine. Now it has returned today, no PS, all above instrument lights on, this happened about 100 klm's from home, had to drive back with no power steering. Not impressed. :censor:

[anchorman]

:( My 2007 D4D Rav4 has an intermttent fault on the power steering which will bring the P/S fault light up on the dash and also stop the power steering from working. The first time it happened it took three attempts of switching on the car before it started to work, the garage looked at it and could find nothing. Three weeks later it happened again and took an hour of trying it before it finaly started working, it is now at the garage getting checked.

Has anyone else had this problem??????

Hi, I also have a 2007 Rav4 cruiser L, had thie problem about three weeks ago, no power steering, PS, ABS, VSC and 4WD lights all on. Took to workshop, they said they had to reset the ''codes'', drove away, fine. Now it has returned today, no PS, all above instrument lights on, this happened about 100 klm's from home, had to drive back with no power steering. Not impressed. :censor:

Wow. Thanks for looking in and welcome to the club!

I would dig in and ask your dealer to get Toyota involved with this. Clearly it is not acceptable to lose all of these systems simultaniously and they need to start changing things to see what cures it. Now that it has done it twice I would suspect that it will continue to do so and something is causing the ECU to default to off.

Did they tell you what fault codes were stored? There have been several posts recently in this forum that refer to DTC code readers which are not expensive. If you could get some codes it might point us in the right direction but I think you should lean on your dealer to do more as they can start throwing componenets at it.

As far as I can remember there have been no similar faults (where so many systems have thrown up fault lights) reported on this forum. You could do a quick search on the US/Ozzy sites which has models similar to yours;

http://us.toyotaownersclub.com/

http://au.toyotaownersclub.com/

http://rav4world.com/forums/index.php

Please let us know what happens.

Regards

[Fujisan]

Welcome to the TOC aravdriver!

Sorry to hear about your troubles, hope you get it all sorted out soon

[shcm]

Hi, I also have a 2007 Rav4 cruiser L, had thie problem about three weeks ago, no power steering, PS, ABS, VSC and 4WD lights all on. Took to workshop, they said they had to reset the ''codes'', drove away, fine. Now it has returned today, no PS, all above instrument lights on, this happened about 100 klm's from home, had to drive back with no power steering. Not impressed. :censor:

G'day mate. Welcome to the pommy bit of TOC.

As Anchorman says, get the garage to tell you what the codes are, it's no good just clearing them out.

I *think* all those systems sit on the same CAN bus (a network which allows them to talk to one another). It could be something as simple as a lose or dodgy connector. The connectors are usually (but not always) the weakest link so to speak.

Another link is rav4oz, but I don't think there's much action there of late:

CLICK - RAV4OZ

Cheers

[bothwell_buyer]

I'd tend to go down the route of a loose connector or part cut wire....had problems with a previous Fiat Puntos' electric power steering and eventually duped the dealer into a part exchange without them road-testing it - phew!!!

Whilst yours are under warranty, log every fault, when and how it occurs and make sure they get a copy of the written fault - and put pressure on them to fix it! Always make sure you get everything in writing, especially what they tell you back -- just to cover yourself.

Good luck

[Uncle Bob]

Welcome to the club Browny .

[aravdriver]

Welcome to the TOC aravdriver!

Sorry to hear about your troubles, hope you get it all sorted out soon

Thanks for the support.

[aravdriver]

:( My 2007 D4D Rav4 has an intermttent fault on the power steering which will bring the P/S fault light up on the dash and also stop the power steering from working. The first time it happened it took three attempts of switching on the car before it started to work, the garage looked at it and could find nothing. Three weeks later it happened again and took an hour of trying it before it finaly started working, it is now at the garage getting checked.

Has anyone else had this problem??????

Hi, I also have a 2007 Rav4 cruiser L, had thie problem about three weeks ago, no power steering, PS, ABS, VSC and 4WD lights all on. Took to workshop, they said they had to reset the ''codes'', drove away, fine. Now it has returned today, no PS, all above instrument lights on, this happened about 100 klm's from home, had to drive back with no power steering. Not impressed. :censor:

Wow. Thanks for looking in and welcome to the club!

I would dig in and ask your dealer to get Toyota involved with this. Clearly it is not acceptable to lose all of these systems simultaniously and they need to start changing things to see what cures it. Now that it has done it twice I would suspect that it will continue to do so and something is causing the ECU to default to off.

Did they tell you what fault codes were stored? There have been several posts recently in this forum that refer to DTC code readers which are not expensive. If you could get some codes it might point us in the right direction but I think you should lean on your dealer to do more as they can start throwing componenets at it.

As far as I can remember there have been no similar faults (where so many systems have thrown up fault lights) reported on this forum. You could do a quick search on the US/Ozzy sites which has models similar to yours;

http://us.toyotaownersclub.com/

http://au.toyotaownersclub.com/

http://rav4world.com/forums/index.php

Please let us know what happens.

Regards

Thakns for the info.

Well it has happened again, I am due to take it to the workshop 4th Jan, this time I also lost the right turn indicator display in the instrument cluster! P/S comes and goes at will. They did tell me the codes that they reset before but I did not take much notice, I will this time, let you know how I go.

Thanks, Dave

[bothwell_buyer]

Dave

hope they find something next year!!

I spent 5 weeks in Oz back in April 2002. Love to visit again - I used to get up early morning when we were in melbourne and just watch the city come to life from 5am. Did a lot of driving as well......I'll need to do another RAV conversion and ship it out for trials!!!

Good luck with the electrical problems.

I've got an old Jaguar XJS that we muck about with - electrical problems - these brutes were the worst ever!! Problem is that a mechanic is what it says - a mechanic. An electrician is an electrician.

I can't get anybody back here in the UK to sort out/diagnose the problem with my propane powered Renault Trafic minibus which is based on the Renault 2.2 petrol engine. Nobody. Same all over mate.

I got lucky with the conversion of my RAV as the guys at The Garage are experts in Nissan Skylines or whtever they are called, but also know the 3SGTE engine well. And the boss used to race; and teaches his crew really well across the board. I never go into their garage/workshop without seeing one of them testing an engine with a laptop sitting on the rocker cover - immense!

Electric power steering is maybe cheaper or less work, but when it goes wrong, nobody knows what to do other than replace the whole lot.

Make sure you get it all in writing from them or big Ian'll be back visiting!!!

[anchorman]

Sounding more like poor connections than a proper fault if other things are being effected.

Keep us informed mate.

Cheers

[aravdriver]

Hi, Ihad the same problem, (look at earlier blog's) took it in for the third time, they found that when Toyota had fitted the tow bar, they had pinched a cable, reconnected the cable, problem GONE. :D hope this helps.

Hello Browny

Welcome to the club.

There have been a few reports of problems with steering on later RAVs with electric drive motors. As far as I can remember they have all been instances of pull rather than not working at all. The problem is that it is all new stuff to the dealers and after checking the obvious they rely heavily on Technical Services to get feedback from "somewhere else" - presumably Japan. The most obvious place to start is with the electrical connections as that will cause the symptoms you describe along with the warning light. After that it starts getting into the ECU that controls it but they are normally very reliable.

I guess your problem will be if you lose the assistance in motion rather than at start up. It will always default to manual but it may be a surprise depending on where you are.

I think you can only let them try to sort it but get them to acknowledge in writing that you have commenced with attempting to resolve the issue in case you get to rejecting the vehicle.

Good luck.

[anchorman]

Hi, Ihad the same problem, (look at earlier blog's) took it in for the third time, they found that when Toyota had fitted the tow bar, they had pinched a cable, reconnected the cable, problem GONE. :D hope this helps.

Hello Browny

Welcome to the club.

There have been a few reports of problems with steering on later RAVs with electric drive motors. As far as I can remember they have all been instances of pull rather than not working at all. The problem is that it is all new stuff to the dealers and after checking the obvious they rely heavily on Technical Services to get feedback from "somewhere else" - presumably Japan. The most obvious place to start is with the electrical connections as that will cause the symptoms you describe along with the warning light. After that it starts getting into the ECU that controls it but they are normally very reliable.

I guess your problem will be if you lose the assistance in motion rather than at start up. It will always default to manual but it may be a surprise depending on where you are.

I think you can only let them try to sort it but get them to acknowledge in writing that you have commenced with attempting to resolve the issue in case you get to rejecting the vehicle.

Good luck.

Good stuff - thank you. I have started a spread sheet to try and help narrow these faults down when they occur. Could I trouble you to be more specific and say exact which wire and where on the vehicle it was. Do you mean at the back near the bar itself or under the dash when doing the electrics?

Cheers

[writerman]

My 2006 RAV4 electric power steering had a short failure a month or so ago with the PS light on. It lasted for a few miles until I stopped and shut it off for awhile---then it was OK. A week and a half ago, it did it again only this time it was more serious because I was in the middle of a multi-mile drive. I shut it off and borrowed another car. When I started it the next morning it was OK again, but I took it to my Toyota Dealer. They checked it out and said the entire system was shot--power steering computer and sterring rack. This was at 54,000 miles. Thank God I had purchased the extended warranty because the bill to fix this was $2500. I wasn't worried about Toyota quality before, because I thought it was confined to specific things on other vehicles but now I'm wondering. Although I had planned to keep this vehicle well past 100,000 miles, I'm thinking now that I might trade it out when the extended warranty plays out at 100,000 miles. Because of this incident, I'm thinking Honda next time.

[AustraliaRav]

My 2007 D4D Rav4 has an intermttent fault on the power steering which will bring the P/S fault light up on the dash and also stop the power steering from working. The first time it happened it took three attempts of switching on the car before it started to work, the garage looked at it and could find nothing. Three weeks later it happened again and took an hour of trying it before it finaly started working, it is now at the garage getting checked.

Has anyone else had this problem??????

Hi, I also have a 2007 Rav4 cruiser L, had thie problem about three weeks ago, no power steering, PS, ABS, VSC and 4WD lights all on. Took to workshop, they said they had to reset the ''codes'', drove away, fine. Now it has returned today, no PS, all above instrument lights on, this happened about 100 klm's from home, had to drive back with no power steering. Not impressed.

Wow. Thanks for looking in and welcome to the club!

I would dig in and ask your dealer to get Toyota involved with this. Clearly it is not acceptable to lose all of these systems simultaniously and they need to start changing things to see what cures it. Now that it has done it twice I would suspect that it will continue to do so and something is causing the ECU to default to off.

Did they tell you what fault codes were stored? There have been several posts recently in this forum that refer to DTC code readers which are not expensive. If you could get some codes it might point us in the right direction but I think you should lean on your dealer to do more as they can start throwing componenets at it.

As far as I can remember there have been no similar faults (where so many systems have thrown up fault lights) reported on this forum. You could do a quick search on the US/Ozzy sites which has models similar to yours;

http://us.toyotaownersclub.com/

http://au.toyotaownersclub.com/

http://rav4world.com/forums/index.php

Please let us know what happens.

Regards

Thakns for the info.

Well it has happened again, I am due to take it to the workshop 4th Jan, this time I also lost the right turn indicator display in the instrument cluster! P/S comes and goes at will. They did tell me the codes that they reset before but I did not take much notice, I will this time, let you know how I go.

Thanks, Dave

[AustraliaRav]

Hi Dave, I have had this same annoying and frustrating problem. first my indicator would not work, at the same time my radio stopped working. I have now had the power steering fail on two occassions, power steering, vsc and abs lights all lit up at the same time. Steering became difficult. Did you happen to find out what was done to fix your problem as it sounds very similar. Thanks, AustraliaRav

[anchorman]

Hi Kerry

Welcome to the club.

You will see this thread goes all the way back to 2007 and tbh, is extremely rare. As you lose a number of items I would suggest you check all the Battery connections and earths. It sounds like a power supply problem,

[BJB]

I can second Anchormans comments above. I reduced power steering a few weeks ago on several occasions with several alarms. Happened on starting from cold only. Under Toyota warranty so back to the dealer who diagnosed corroded Battery earth strap.

New one fitted and no more problems

[AustraliaRav]

Thanks very much for your swift and helpful reply. I will make sure they check the connections as recommended. It mentions in a previous post that a spreadsheet of error codes was also being compiled does anyone have this?

Cheers

AustraliaRav

[AustraliaRav]

Thank you very much Brian for your reply.

Can you remember how long has it been since the Battery earth strap was fitted? Please give me some hope.......So pleased this fixed your problem.

Have passed on your helpful post to my mechanic and auto electrician.

Thanks again

Kerry

[BJB]

Thank you very much Brian for your reply.

Can you remember how long has it been since the battery earth strap was fitted? Please give me some hope.......So pleased this fixed your problem.

Have passed on your helpful post to my mechanic and auto electrician.

Thanks again

Kerry

The earth strap was replaced 12 weeks ago and no more problems to date.

Bryan

[anchorman]

Toyota Specific DTC Codes.pdf