The Friday before Thanksgiving my wife drove downtown when she heard some clunking in the steering. She immediately came home and told me. I listened and said we needed to take it in immediately. So I jumped into my Miata and we went to the dealer. After we got there, she said that the wheel had to be kept turned to keep the Prius straight. The dealer determined that it was not safe to drive and that parts had to be ordered. The parts arrived Tuesday and they spent all day Wednesday working on the car. We went down about 5:30 PM and waited while they finished up, leaving about 6:30 PM, 30 minutes after closing. The parts that were damaged were the Steering Slip Yoke, the Steering Intermediate Shaft, and the Steering Gear Assembly itself. It seems a bolt came loose on the Intermediate Shaft, allowing it to strip and wear the splines on the gear assembly and the yoke assembly. So you might want to have them checked periodically. Oh, supposedly a service bulletin is coming out on the Inverter Coolant Pump that we had to have replaced a year ago. If you had a problem, Toyota might being reimbursing you a little. I'm waiting to see if it is true.
A Special Service Campaign (aka recall) was in place for the intermediate steering shaft of older 2G. Was that SSC applied to your car previously? The Limited Service Campaign regarding the inverter coolant pump has been released and there are a few posts providing details about that, including how to obtain reimbursement for prior repairs.
My 2004 Prius also had a "Clunk" in the steering at 180k miles (but no steering control issue). My dealer diagnosed the problem ($90) as the steering column slip yoke and ordered the part. The repair was to replace the UPPER steering column assembly for $800. All owners of early, high mileage Gen2 Prii should be alert for this failure now that two cases have been reported. I also had the earlier steering recall done a while ago. My dealer said that the problems were not related. JeffD
Here is the complete text of the SPECIAL SERVICE CAMPAIGN (SSC) – 60C (SAFETY RECALL) (2004 THROUGH EARLY 2006 STEERING INTERMEDIATE SHAFT REPLACEMENT). It has Q&As, and an illustrated sequence for the actual parts replacement/repair. SSC – 60C
After reading the detail of SSC-60C I now question the dealer's saying that the two were unrelated. In the recall the work included an "inspection" of the sliding yoke and Toyota expected that 50% of them would need replacement. I have to determine if mine was replaced at that time. If not (even if so) I will ask for the $890 that I paid for this work to be refunded. We'll see what their response will be when I bring my Prius in for my 200k mile maintenance (I'm at 187k miles at this time) in a few months. JeffD.
