[tommyp]

Hey all,

My wife has just dropped our child at school and went to drive away and the power steering has stopped working with a 'power steering malfunction' sign on the dash.

I've looked through the forums but couldn't see anything in relation to this.

Anything I can check before taking it to a garage to be looked at?

Thanks

Tom

 

[Gremlin]

a quick look for ford power steering showed, it maybe another of the symptoms caused by a low battery.
(very common at this time of year in the UK since its getting cold again)

ps, its electrically assisted power steering (epas)
the other thing to do is check the tyre pressures. (no rational to this being the problem, its just good practice, especially as the weather changes)

 

[Hywel S Wales]

Hopefully it will be a low battery ( how old is your car ?) A search on this site shows hardly any power steering issues, so not a common problem anyway.
Let us know how you get on.

 

[cianpars]

Check tyres, check power steering fluid level and recharge battery would be my first courses of action.

Hope the issue is resolved easily and cheaply.

 

[pegleg]

You can't check the power steering fluid, there isn't any; as Gremlin points out, it's EPAS.
I just hope it's low battery voltage and nothing else. The EPAS motor is built into the steering column.

 

[cianpars]

Of course, no pws fluid on the b max, I was just thinking generalisticly.
Initial thoughts were low battery too, but I would be surprised if that caused a pws warning light.
pws issues do seem to be quite rare though on recent ford models.
Possibly then a blown fuse or new pws motor.

 

[cianpars]

PS. Also might be worth a hard electrical reset to discount a bug in the system.