Power steering drive and reverse not working properly

Tiny
BRIANWS
  • MEMBER
  • 2007 FORD EDGE
  • 3.5L
  • V6
  • 4WD
  • AUTOMATIC
  • 194,000 MILES
I was backing out of my driveway I put my car in park and when I put it back into reverse it wouldn't move. RPM's shot up, power steering went out and when I put it in to drive it still would not move. I turned the car off and back on and everything seemed normal again. All of the symptoms it had just a few seconds before were gone.
Thursday, December 10th, 2020 AT 5:05 PM

1 Reply

Tiny
KASEKENNY
  • MECHANIC
  • 18,907 POSTS
This sounds like an intermittent electrical communication issue. This is called a CAN bus network and the way it works is like a highway where the modules communicate back and forth with each other. When there is an issue on this, there are odd and seemly crazy things that happen because these modules are not able to communicate with each out.

Here is a guide that will help with this:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/can-scan-controller-area-network-easy

However, the fact that you shut the key off and all returned to normal is what tells us that this was a temporary condition. I am not suggesting it will not happen again but there is no guarantee that it will happen again.

What I would suggest is checking for codes now and if there are none then we are going to have to wait until this acts up again or is more predicable.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/checking-a-service-engine-soon-or-check-engine-light-on-or-flashing

The cause of this is a module that is communicating a the wrong time or is not able to communicate due to a wiring issue and these types of issues occur. The reason they do is because it is like the highway is full of traffic and the one module cannot get its message to the other module so they act crazy.

Shutting it off and starting it back up clears it up because it resets the module.

Let me know what questions you have. Thanks
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Friday, December 11th, 2020 AT 9:42 AM

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