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      09-07-2018, 09:01 AM   #1
strokemycocktus
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Power steering died 2 days after rack rebuild

I had a very small leak on the steering rack in the place the columnt connects. The power steering was working 100% correct, completely no issues, didn't even have to top up the oil more than ~30ml every few months. No weird sounds, nothing alarming was present.
I am now taking care of all the leaks under the car, so I had the rack refurbished (all seals replaced, etc).
After I picked up the car yesterday I immediately felt the steering was a bit heavier and there was no change with the servotronic setting normal to sport. Other than that everything felt rather normal. Today I went to an airstrip and done a few donuts, and after a brief moment I had no power steering at all. Nothing spectacular happened, no codes, it just went off, but was back on when I revved the engine a bit. Returned to the shop, they saw metal flakes in the reservoir and said that most likely the pump has failed

I drove abut 50km city and 50km highway, + 10-15 min of donuts with some cooldown breaks before it failed.
The shop admits the situation is very weird and unpleasant, but say it must be just an unfortunate coincidence that the pump has failed now, as it is impossible that the refurbished rack caused the pump to fail.

Seems I will need to buy a new pump, and I am probably going to get a used one just in case it fails again because something else actually did cause it...
Any ideas on why this happened? Sure the pump could have been weak already and the drifting killed it, but the heavy steering, no servo combo after the rack rebuild make the situation a bit tough to swallow.

The car has now 65k km.
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      09-07-2018, 11:20 AM   #2
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by any chance do you have turn signal or lighting problems?
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      09-07-2018, 11:21 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrón View Post
by any chance do you have turn signal or lighting problems?
No, why?
Only battery discharge but I don't know how this is related.
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      09-07-2018, 11:25 AM   #4
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Ok, actually my LED tailight went off recently.
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      09-07-2018, 07:29 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by strokemycocktus View Post
I had a very small leak on the steering rack in the place the columnt connects. The power steering was working 100% correct, completely no issues, didn't even have to top up the oil more than ~30ml every few months. No weird sounds, nothing alarming was present.
I am now taking care of all the leaks under the car, so I had the rack refurbished (all seals replaced, etc).
After I picked up the car yesterday I immediately felt the steering was a bit heavier and there was no change with the servotronic setting normal to sport. Other than that everything felt rather normal. Today I went to an airstrip and done a few donuts, and after a brief moment I had no power steering at all. Nothing spectacular happened, no codes, it just went off, but was back on when I revved the engine a bit. Returned to the shop, they saw metal flakes in the reservoir and said that most likely the pump has failed

I drove abut 50km city and 50km highway, + 10-15 min of donuts with some cooldown breaks before it failed.
The shop admits the situation is very weird and unpleasant, but say it must be just an unfortunate coincidence that the pump has failed now, as it is impossible that the refurbished rack caused the pump to fail.

Seems I will need to buy a new pump, and I am probably going to get a used one just in case it fails again because something else actually did cause it...
Any ideas on why this happened? Sure the pump could have been weak already and the drifting killed it, but the heavy steering, no servo combo after the rack rebuild make the situation a bit tough to swallow.

The car has now 65k km.
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      09-08-2018, 03:08 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by L4ces View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by strokemycocktus View Post
I had a very small leak on the steering rack in the place the columnt connects. The power steering was working 100% correct, completely no issues, didn't even have to top up the oil more than ~30ml every few months. No weird sounds, nothing alarming was present.
I am now taking care of all the leaks under the car, so I had the rack refurbished (all seals replaced, etc).
After I picked up the car yesterday I immediately felt the steering was a bit heavier and there was no change with the servotronic setting normal to sport. Other than that everything felt rather normal. Today I went to an airstrip and done a few donuts, and after a brief moment I had no power steering at all. Nothing spectacular happened, no codes, it just went off, but was back on when I revved the engine a bit. Returned to the shop, they saw metal flakes in the reservoir and said that most likely the pump has failed

I drove abut 50km city and 50km highway, + 10-15 min of donuts with some cooldown breaks before it failed.
The shop admits the situation is very weird and unpleasant, but say it must be just an unfortunate coincidence that the pump has failed now, as it is impossible that the refurbished rack caused the pump to fail.

Seems I will need to buy a new pump, and I am probably going to get a used one just in case it fails again because something else actually did cause it...
Any ideas on why this happened? Sure the pump could have been weak already and the drifting killed it, but the heavy steering, no servo combo after the rack rebuild make the situation a bit tough to swallow.

The car has now 65k km.
Fcpeuro
I'm in Europe, importing parts is not the most cost efficient.
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      09-08-2018, 05:14 AM   #7
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Ok, I've been thinking a bit and the only things that come to my mind are either contamination in lines (dirt, which is unlikely, or air), or a super weird coincidence that the pump failed just now.
Given there were absolutely no squeaks and that there were metal flakes in the reservoir, isn't air the most likely cause?
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      09-12-2018, 09:28 AM   #8
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The pump was inspected and it is completely blown.
They say air clogging is impossible and that it must have been already in poor condition and was just beaten to death with these few donuts (too much steering angle on high rpm, etc).

Could someone help validate this diagnosis?
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      09-17-2018, 10:08 PM   #9
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How do you know if your PS is on the way out? Did you hear a high pitch whine coming from the engine end when you are revving the car? or crusing?
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      09-18-2018, 02:43 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by strokemycocktus View Post
Ok, actually my LED tailight went off recently.
that is exactly why i asked and why i posted. your frm is out and it's related to your power steering.

Benvo discovered this for me.


once i addressed the frm, the power steering was 100% fixed after spending nearly $1,000 on an Incompetent shop.


cliffnotes: FRM footwell module
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      09-18-2018, 02:47 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by strokemycocktus View Post
The pump was inspected and it is completely blown.
They say air clogging is impossible and that it must have been already in poor condition and was just beaten to death with these few donuts (too much steering angle on high rpm, etc).

Could someone help validate this diagnosis?
shop diagnosed my pump was "Blown". replaced pump, didn't fix a damn thing. shop then changed their mind that perhaps the bad pump contaminated the steering rack.

trust me, it's your frm. change shops, they are miss diagnosing and will only throw parts , that are expensive, and not fixing the problem. if and only if your FRM is working 100% correctly would i look for other causes.
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      09-18-2018, 02:54 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrón View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by strokemycocktus View Post
The pump was inspected and it is completely blown.
They say air clogging is impossible and that it must have been already in poor condition and was just beaten to death with these few donuts (too much steering angle on high rpm, etc).

Could someone help validate this diagnosis?
shop diagnosed my pump was "Blown". replaced pump, didn't fix a damn thing. shop then changed their mind that perhaps the bad pump contaminated the steering rack.

trust me.

it's your frm. change shops, they are miss diagnosing and will only throw parts , that are expensive, and not fixing the problem. if and only if your FRM is working 100% correctly would i look for other causes.
shop diagnosed my pump was "Blown". replaced pump, didn't fix a damn thing. shop then changed their mind that perhaps the bad pump contaminated the steering rack.

trust me.

it's your frm. change shops, they are miss diagnosing and will only throw parts , that are expensive, and not fixing the problem. if and only if your FRM is working 100% correctly would i look for other causes.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the info, I'll look into that. The thing is I saw the pump disassembled and it was completely worn out. All the metal parts were scratched. There were also flakes in my reservoir, therefore the whole rack was also disassembled for cleaning.
My guess is that faulty electronics (frm) would affect the servotronic, but not shut the power steering off completely like in my case, as it is a hydraulic system.
But my servotronic was also not working properly, so this may be a side story here.
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      09-19-2018, 07:21 PM   #13
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Good luck, I hope you get it fixed.
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      01-19-2019, 02:11 PM   #14
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My power steering went out, very heavy steering. Car has sat about 3 weeks with the holidays etc.

What is the FRM? To my knowledge, No lights have gone out but I’ll check. No notifications on the car. I like to troubleshoot on my own first before taking it into a shop to prevent unnecessary expenses and challenge the techs if they arrive at different conclusions than my own.
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      01-19-2019, 03:20 PM   #15
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Interesting...FRM? Curious to hear why that would affect PS. Would be great info to know.

One other thing, always, always, always replace the PS reservoir when you replace PS components.
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      01-19-2019, 04:29 PM   #16
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In my case replacing the pump solved the problem - I haven't had any problems since then, everything seems to be running fine. I know that the rack was disassembled and cleaned, probably along with some hoses when changing the pump. The fluid was then changed after 1k km tu "flush" the new system.
But, to my knowledge, the reservoir was not replaced. I am sure it was cleaned, rinsed, etc, but I was not aware it is important to replace it as well. Should I still bother with this, or assume that it's all good if the car runs fine?
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      01-19-2019, 06:05 PM   #17
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Check all the wiring, one of my wires got cut after not securing it properly after a rotor change and same thing happened to me. (Not sure what wire exactly but it was PS related)
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      01-19-2019, 06:57 PM   #18
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If servotronic isn’t working it would make it seem like the ps isn’t working, there’s a wire that’s in the driver front wheel housing that runs over a clip on the subframe and into the steering rack. Verify the condition of this connection.
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      01-20-2019, 03:07 AM   #19
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Lol, not possible to mistake faulty servotronic with power steering going off. It's slightly heavier steering vs being rather unable to turn the wheels when stationary.
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      01-20-2019, 01:25 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by strokemycocktus View Post
In my case replacing the pump solved the problem - I haven't had any problems since then, everything seems to be running fine. I know that the rack was disassembled and cleaned, probably along with some hoses when changing the pump. The fluid was then changed after 1k km tu "flush" the new system.
But, to my knowledge, the reservoir was not replaced. I am sure it was cleaned, rinsed, etc, but I was not aware it is important to replace it as well. Should I still bother with this, or assume that it's all good if the car runs fine?
What you likely did was use your PS pump to filter out stuff in your system. No use in changing it now.

If you had a failure which left debris in the system then the pump slurps it up out of the filter in the reservoir when you start it up again.

Interesting...my car is mostly optionless so I don't have servotronic. Or at least I don't think so.
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      01-20-2019, 01:50 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bigjae1976 View Post
What you likely did was use your PS pump to filter out stuff in your system. No use in changing it now.

If you had a failure which left debris in the system then the pump slurps it up out of the filter in the reservoir when you start it up again.

Interesting...my car is mostly optionless so I don't have servotronic. Or at least I don't think so.
All M3s have servotronic.
Well, great news then haha. But I wasn't convinced that something else is not causing the pump to go bad so I bought a used one. Even if it dies again I will then replace it with a new one and then remember to change the reservoir as well.
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