Vauxhall Meriva power steering fault causing loss of power assistance and EPS light to come on the dashboard.
Well it has happened sooner than I thought, Our Meriva has had the dreaded EPS light and power steering fault that so many Meriva owners have reported.My wife was driving and as she pulled out of a junction she lost all power assistance to the steering sending her into the oncoming lane narrowly avoiding a serious accident.
The fault is easily cleared by turning off the ignition and restarting the car but that is only a tempory solution as this can re occur at any time, it could be days, weeks or months but it will happen again.
The fault is a well known one and it appears to be caused by an over pressure on the power steering pump when on full steering lock. It is such a common fault that it was even the subject of a BBC Watchdog TV program.
Now some owners have had to pay for a replacement steering column and others seem to have been offered a free replacement under warranty by Vauxhall themselves even on older high mileage cars.
Now my Meriva is 10 years old and high milage so I dont think I will have much luck with a warranty claim but I am willing to give it a try so I will contact Vauxhall directly at the weekend and see what response I get and I will update this post with the results.
I believe it is an elecrical glitch in the EPS torque sensor connector.
ReplyDeleteThe connector has 6 active pins (8 total, 2 empty) and 3 voltages.
Left hand (turns left when voltage is above 2.5 Volts, range 0.25 - 4.75 volts)
Right hand (turns right when voltage is above 2.5 Volts, range 0.25 - 4.75 volts)
Position (not sure about how it works).
If Left hand or right hand drops to 0 in a glitch, EPS is deactivated.
If left hand has a "neutral" voltage of f.ex 2.2 volts because of established, stable bad connection, turning to the left will be harder than to the right.
Improve the connection with a good contact cleaner, f.ex deoxit. As with the gear linkage mentioned in this blog, substandard component quality is not impossible (had the gear linkage changed partly on guarantee at 40 000 km on my 2003 Meriva).
Access to the connector is easy
http://www.vauxhallownersnetwork.co.uk/index.php?threads/meriva-eps-light.137385/page-7