The power steering on my 02 stopped working a couple of weeks ago after a tropical storm rolled through. I moved the car to the street just before the storm hit to avoid any limbs falling on the top and it was working then. The next day when I went to move it back in the driveway it was suddenly not working and the eps light was on. I have no idea if the storm had anything to do with it and it is probably a coincidence. I've done the eps torque sensor reset about a dozen times and I have even swapped out the eps control module but I have not been able to get the power steering to work. I know some have had pulsing issues and inconsistency problems but I have not had a single problem leading up till now. Has anyone else had the power steering stop working suddenly that can give me some insight to what the problem might be or the best way to go about narrowing it down?

Thanks.

 

Have you checked the fuse ? The electrical connector on the torque sensor is fairly low , if you got high water on the road it could have been submerged in water and water soaked. You can try taking the electrical connectors off to see if they have water in them and need to dry out, or they may be dry now but they could have caused the fuse to blow if they were water soaked when you started the car.

 

I have looked for a fuse but I have not been able to locate it. Do you know where it is? I did not see any under EPS in the box by the battery or under the dash. There is the small box on the driver side but there are no labels on mine to tell me what they are for. I don't think it was submerged in water however I may take those connecters off next and clean them. Correct me if I'm wrong but I imagine that there isn't a whole lot that could cause this trouble since it's just an electric rack, torque sensor and control module.

 

The rack has an electrical connector on rack itself. Maybe that got moist, or a ground. The ground for the rack is right by the drivers motor mount.

 

Two of them for eps, the fuse #5 in the under dash box, and #33 in the underhood box , if it is going to be one of them it will likely be #33 as #5 is tied in with a bunch of other components and they would all be out if it was that fuse, but check both. #33 is a large fuse that is bolted in place you need to use a good light to have a look at that one from the clear top cap on it.

https://fuse-box.info/honda/honda-s2...uses-and-relay

 

Thanks for the info, I will look into those fuses and grounds here in a bit. I know I had some trouble with one of the grounds when I first got the car.

 

^ grounds can do funny things when they are not 100%. Whenever I get an older Honda that I care about I will add several additional grounds, you can't have too many,. Good insurance.

 

Okay, here is an update on this situation. I check all the grounds and everything checks out there. I did the paper clip trick to read the DTC code and got DTC3. I followed the troubleshooting guidelines from the service manual for the DTC3 code. Everything check out until the last step where it said to check for continuity between the green and red wires which was open and it says to replace the steering gearbox because there is an internal short to ground. The interesting thing though is when I check for continuity to ground on either the green wire or the red wire while connected to the drive motor I get nothing. If there is an internal short to ground you would think you could measure that by checking continuity to ground on either wire and find a connection.

 

I assume you checked the main EPS fuse ? you noted that you had a hard time finding it in one of your replies.

 

My 2006 is different but the main EPS fuse is 70a (seventy amps). Regardless pull every EPS fuse and check for continuity of the fuse itself. Rarely there's a microscopic gap or corrosion on the blades but it only costs a few minutes to verify.

-- Chuck