Electric Power Steering Issues

[Lancer08]

Uneducated possible theory I have,

Seeing as it correlates with low speed..
The alternator was checked. It is fine. The battery is new too. So it's getting plenty of juice.
But maybe the motor itself has an issue with receiving that power from the alternator.
I assume once the car is at speed the motor, like the alternator, it is powered kinetically by the rotation of the wheels instead of the battery etc.

So this does indicate to me that the problem is with the motor itself. And maybe it isn't something I'd have to worry about at higher speeds.
It surely can't be coincidence that the problem has never once happened above ten miles an hour. I don't see how the ECU would be at fault only at low speed.
This can entirely be thrown out if the fault ever happens at speed. But it's happened a dozen times now either idle or in first gear. So I doubt it.

[benyamin]

Without knowing what specific problem code was stored and in what ECU, it would be difficult to comment further. Perhaps you could get this information from the dealer from when they worked on it (presuming they recorded it somewhere).

Did the dealer actually reset the steering neutral position in the ASC ECU when you took it in? If so, has the fault happened since?

[Lancer08]

Unfortunately the only info I could get was from the receptionist and they want me to come in when the fault is active to pinpoint exactly what it is.
They said they checked the steering neutral position and it was all fine but didn't say if they made adjustments. I assume they didn't.
Not great service from them at all unfortunately.. very poor at giving information. Just a girl at reception and a job sheet as a receipt.

Since it hasn't happened, but it's been averaging about once a week and it's only been a couple days now.

[Lancer08]

Well it's been about a year but I figure I should post a conclusion now just in case anyone is interested.

Eventually I hunted down another steering rack for a good price from a scrapper. It was an updated version with a different part number but was still compatible with my Lancer, just a little newer.

Once the old rack was out I found out the previous owner replaced the original with a second hand part and had done a rough job with the electrical connections. This bad job was probably what was causing the intermittent cut outs in the power steering. The rack was replaced anyway and connections cleaned up, retracked and good to go now.

So in conclusion I believe this problem came from the previous owner doing a substandard job.
The lesson of the story is how important it is to only buy second hand cars with a full service history from the previous owner. Otherwise problems like these turn up where you've to play the mechanical archeologist trying to uncover what the previous owner may or may not have done to the car.
Positive side though, she's all fixed up now and good to go.

[lancerdarryl]

Happy to see you ended up with a win.

[Mars1811]

Fantastic! Glad you got it all sorted. Back on the road!

[bumblebee]

Glad you got it sorted and thanks for the info on what you found

[awood]

Good work.

[Lancer08]

Cheers lads! And cheers for the advice down the line as well.

[Lancer08]

Well it seems I was celebrating too soon.

After about a month the power steering started cutting out and quickly got worse than ever to the point of being pretty much constantly off.
So the car's been off the road for over a week now. In the mechanic again today and they haven't a clue.

The chances of two power steering racks having the same problem? Almost 0.
The garage say the connections are perfect too.
So it's not the rack and it's not the wiring. That beats me.
Nobody seems to know anything, my mechanic is having a guy who used to work in the main dealer have a look at it tomorrow.
It's like banging your head off the wall at the moment.

[bumblebee]

do you have a service manual ? there are links on here to get one, speaking of which, im waiting on another to arrive via snail mail that i can add to the collection
mmm
almost starts to sound like a wiring issue
is the car new or 2nd hand?
has it been in any accidents?

[Lancer08]

I thought wiring issue too but unfortunately it doesn't seem so.
The mechanic said it beat them anyway, after two days with them there's nothing they can do.
Took it back, went out to an auto electrician today. He was very thorough to be fair but he said it's shagged too.
It doesn't appear to be a hardware issue, more than likely software corruption or some other software glitch.
The only fault it throws is an engine power input error. But the engine power input is working, it goes through the CANs fine and gives all normal readings, it's somewhere in the power steering ECU that's causing a codeless error.
And the fact that this is an entirely separate ECU to before, yet has the same issue is just bizarre. It's possible that it's incompatible, but if that was the case why did it work fine before for a few weeks and then packed in?

The only suggestion is to send it to an ECU specialist. The closest one to me is in England.. and the cost involved with that is the value of the car more than likely. Plus I'd be without transport for months as this is obviously my only car.

Alternatively I could go and get yet another rack, and convert the whole thing to hydraulic. Which would be a hefty job and again would involve some massive electronic work which goes to the realm of ridiculousness. Plus, it might run but it'd never pass the national car roadworthiness test because that would inevitably throw a dozen error codes as the car isn't made for hydraulic steering.

The third option is the most likely one and that's to cut my losses and send her to the great adios at the scrapyard.

It's not new, I've had it a few years. Treated it like a baby but previous owners mustn't have. It was never written off but they could well have been hitting curbs or something which damaged the original parts. Their new parts which were wired up badly may have introduced bugs into the system. Who knows.
I've kinda done all I can, literally now nobody can fix it for me in the country. What a stupid, dumb reason for a car to get scrapped. It doesn't even have a 80,000 miles on the clock, never has had any other issues. Just bad luck.

I'm open to any suggestions anyway, it's tested until next summer. So I can drag it around till then but parking without power steering is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

In case anyone is a real specialist here's some info
MMC part no: 1038363333413030
Diagnostic version: 00/02
Software version: 07/07
Hardware version: 07/06
Protocol ID: 0x1305
Protocol: CAN_KWP2000-(ISO 11898-1)

[Lancer08]

I just spoke to the auto electrician again and apparently Mitsubishi have an error code that gets lost in translation.
Engine Speed Input error can be mistranslated from Motor Speed Input error. (Error code: C1522)
As I've previously said the engine speed sensors work fine. So this does give it some hope. Because a motor error could be caused by something physical like shorting due to a bad connection somewhere.
So there is a chance I could get this fixed still. Who knows.

[Mars1811]

Jeez, what a wild error. I'm hoping for you it's not an expensive fix. Writing off a car for such a strange and what should be easily fixable issue is such a waste, economically and of an entirely, otherwise perfect car.

[bumblebee]

mmm. sounds like a wiring issue some where and trying to find those gremlins can be like finding a needle in a hay stack
seen it before where the outer case of the wiring is fine, but the wires inside are broken and can cause from vibration ,intermittent connection and cause all sorts of silly issues