Unable to steer - Steering wheel disengaged from front wheels

I haven't looked at your video yet but you should look at the steering shaft connection from the steering wheel down on the floor there's a u-joint a flex joint sometimes it can become a skew and create issues but not like what you have here this seems to be something with the electric drive motor above your knees when you're driving that does the steering I have a '07 right now that acts up it kind of sticks in places and it feels funny when the car's off and I'm turning the steering wheel I hit this detent that I don't in my other cars so this one is probably heading to what yours is now It looks like that this thing can take up slop to a certain amount of degrees or whatever and all kinds of things from what I read about it and it feels like it when you move the steering wheel when everything is turned off you're going against some kind of a servo so I guess I'll be pulling that out of my parts car and taking a look at it and putting it in this 06 that I'm talking about looks like you'll be probably doing the same

 

Unless of course some fuse has gone funky and just taking the power away from that circuit I believe that runs on the 12 volt so there should be or possibly as a fuse for the electronic steering whatever that's called I haven't really looked that closely

 

The electric assist for the steering is only that, an assist. The steering connection is mechanical, so if the wheel isn't moving the knuckles, that's a mechanical failure.

 

It's just an assist but can it like self-center itself or some kind of nonsense or something going on inside that thing If I pick my wheels up off the ground and the car is off and the steering's unlocked and I rotate that thing around and round I can feel some kind of feedback or something going on like I'm turning some kind of a gear something another I don't know how to explain it but anyway and it seems it may be able to center itself or some kind of nonsense like that goes on with this thing I wouldn't say it could be bad enough where you could make two turns of the steering wheel and barely move the wheels I'd like to think that isn't possible but listen to what the guy thinks he's saying or whatever thinks he's describing He turns the wheel three turns the steering wheel and the front wheels barely move I guess in the direction he's turning the wheel That's pretty wild. It seems to me something else may go on in that power assist especially if it can self-center and stuff like that I don't know I haven't read that much about it You guys should be the experts but I have a '07 loaded car right now that when I'm driving the car straight down the road the steering sticks literally when I move the wheel to add some input it comes undone from something and as far as I can tell the tie rods and the rack and everything looks good I haven't checked the connection at the slip joint or the yolk or whatever we're calling that but other than that everything looks good but it seems to me this problem in this vehicle is that steering do that I can steer the car it goes lock to lock but when driving only not wen sitting jakd up. I can't reproduce it then I have to be driving the car and it's real annoying if you don't realize it it could make an unsuspecting person possibly go in the ditch I mean they'd have to be the real frantic type but I could see it. And my idea is to change that electric steering thing above my knees everything else looks good my alignment guy had his way with the car and said the alignment is great so who knows.

 

wasn't there a recall for a loose bolt in the steering shaft?

 

That would be great that might explain the OPs problem for sure and man you need to get that checked quick before it lets go while you're going down the road completely and you have no way to go anywhere except for the car takes you holy moly. My problem wouldn't be that as I have full steering just a little bit of a hang up

 

found this:2012-safety-recall-c0t-will-toyota-replace.224104

 

What I meant in #4 is that there really is a purely mechanical steering linkage. This car does not have any kind of "steer by wire" design where the electrics could cause any funny business between the wheel and the rack. The electrics can only contribute more force to the mechanical linkage so you turn it more easily. You can steer just fine with the electrics non-functional; it's just more of a workout.

Any time the steering acts like you can turn the wheel and the linkage isn't moving by the corresponding amount, it's a mechanical problem you have: something has broken or come apart.

 

Well to see in the '07 $700 car because this steering seems to have something sticking right up around that electronic business I have a disconnected it yet to turn it by the end of the rack only manually I have a yoke and a separate shaft to do that sitting in the shop I don't think this is the rack sticking but I could be wrong It seems like it's something in that servo assist thing and I thought that this car could center its own steering mechanism with Toyota software which means it internally it must run on another ring or something that is able to allow something to move and adjust it center position or something along those lines I mean help me out here I thought this was a thing If not I got no problems troubleshooting the rack I just don't think there's anything wrong with the steering linkage any of it this car is always done this since I got it and I've replaced like all my cars the front hubs wheel bearings and links and that's about where it ended on this car everything else is in very nice shape but the steering acts like it sticks at about going straight ahead and when you come to a turn a slight turn and you get ready to turn the wheel You hear it decouple from something like make a click I wish I could duplicate how that feels it's very strange It's not like the power's going away or anything like that but it's very strange I can't wait to get this apart and really have a look c but I would be kind of surprised to see problems with the yolk but I guess it's possible as others have seen it of plenty it looks like.

 

Centering the steering mechanism is done the same old way: make sure the tie rods are adjusted to the right lengths and put the wheel on the steering shaft splines the right way. There's a tsb describing the details. There isn't any magical software for centering it.

There is a steering angle sensor that's an input to the skid control, and you might be thinking of how the skid control learns what sensor input corresponds to 'straight ahead'. It doesn't need a special calibrate/learn procedure for that, because it can tell when you're driving straight ahead (from the equal wheel speeds and the yaw sensor) so it just looks at whatever the steering angle sensor reading is right then and remembers "that must be straight ahead".

That's just the skid ECU learning what a certain sensor input means. It doesn't have anything to do with centering the actual steering. If you've got your steering adjusted so the car goes straight when the wheel's at two o'clock, the skid ECU will go right ahead and learn that's what straight ahead is. If you then adjust the tie rods properly so the wheel points the right way, the ECU will learn that too.

 

@vintagechuck if you could upload your video to youtube and post a link it'd be readily viewable.

Or maybe just change your Google Drive settings for that video??

 

video is working for me. i'd say the only connection between the wheel and the wheels is a bit of friction

 

Great well we'll see what the deal is I think in this vehicle there's something going on in that thing because while I'm driving down the road it kind of locks and then when I steer the car to move it out of the position it's in something let's go and there's nothing loose in the front end I promise it's all new pretty much and been on about 4 or 5 months and it's been doing this ever since I got the car with the original suspension it always felt funny going down the road straight or anything even in a turn at a certain point almost at center it'll like block is the best way I can describe it but the minute you try to turn it it lets go and it's quite unnerving if you're not prepared for it.

 

Yeah video works for me now too.

 

Not directly - nothing really connects the steering and the HV battery.

However....

The longer the car sits the more time the HV battery has to get out of balance. The worse the HV battery is the faster it gets out of balance. I had a Honda Civic Hybrid with a really weak IMA pack throw the equivalent code after it sat for a week at the airport.

 

The problemis that once the battery is out of balance it will not rebalance itself in normal driving. It must be hooked up to an external charger that drives all the cells to full charge at a low enough current that the ones that reach 100% SOC first are not damaged while waiting for the weaker ones to catch up.