Problem:
I am driving a Scion XB 2009 yr. So yesterday I went to leave work, and no power steering. Steering wheel light was on. Managed to drive it an hour and a half home and did some quick research. From my understanding, the car has electric steering and the ECU typically goes bad. I did pull the negative battery cable and waited over and hour. Reconnected, and started car and problem still existed. Shut car off, came out 45 min later to move it, and everything is fine. This morning, everything is still fine. Now possibly it is a fluke. But knowing the issues with these cars, i am planning for the worst. So my thought is to get a used PS ECU and prepare for replacement. Can‘t afford for a dealer to do this for 800-1500.Has anybody done this?
Solution:
I’m not totally sure this is the problem, but it’s worth the effort if you can get it cheap enough. There’s absolutely no reason to pay a dealer to do this, as you can do it yourself in no time at all with basic hand tools.
The referenced “remove instrument panel” points to a very large document, but basically, remove the radio trim and big piece above the steering wheel (as seen here) and look at this for reference. Not sure this is actually needed; you might be able to get by without:
Post-installation you’ll need to do a zero point calibration. If you have the cheap Xhorse Mini VCI techstream cable, just connect and go to Chassis > EMPS > Utility > Torque Sensor Adjustment and follow the instructions. If not, there’s a manual process you can do (I’ll have to dig up notes on it).