GM's ecomodding efforts leads to recall of Cobalt (electric power steering probs)
Some of you are already aware of this...
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog....chcb005opt.jpg Quote:
(EDIT: note I highlighted the word "assist" above - when the e-motor stops, you still have manual steering.) You can be pretty sure GM only put the electric pumps in the cars as a fuel saving measure. It does make me wonder how many other reliability issues we might see as auto makers embrace less mature technologies in an effort to improve efficiency. Maybe the thought is unwarranted - electric motors don't usually have reliability issues (not like they're an immature technology). More likely a production process or materials issue from a supplier. |
Interesting. I wonder if this is a different pump than they put in the '04 Ion.
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...when the electric steering-pump stops, you loose steering, but the engine's still running.
...when the engine-driven hydraulic steering-pump stops, it's the engine that's probably stopped...but, not always. |
I suspect it's because when engine driven power steering pumps start to fail the engine can handle the increased load, an electric pump the motor over heats and blows the fuse or burns out the motor, solution? stop putting power steering in cars.
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But then my arms will get tired, and I will be able to tell if my tires are low simply by how hard they are to turn. I don't want that!!! Plus, do you know hard it is to parallel park while texting with manual steering? |
Hello -
Yeah, I'm familiar with that. I call the Saturn Ion a "Proto Cobalt" because it's based on the same GM Delta Platform. I researched it here : Ion-Centric repair list? - SaturnFans Forums And thought about the ecomod of removing the motor entirely : Disable Electric Power Steering? - SaturnFans Forums Quote:
Assuming it would be too hard to steer without the motor, my solution would be to buy a second motor and swap them out at regular intervals. That way I would be able to clean one motor at my leisure. I could even keep it in the trunk as a "spare", ha ha. Supposedly it's a snap to remove them on Cobalts. On Ions I think there is more dashboard guck in the way. CarloSW2 |
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And why would an electric power steering system even have a pump? I don't know anything about Chevy's system (just the EPS on my Insight), but it seems pretty Rube Goldbergish... |
Clev -
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ION Power Steering - SaturnFans Forums Quote:
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SaturnFans Forums - View Single Post - ION Power Steering Quote:
CarloSW2 |
...I stand (sit?) corrected and agree the word "pump" is not appropriate in this instance.
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Hi,
I think power steering and power brakes on a small-ish car are completely unnecessary. Just do the engineering to let them work "manually" -- it would be more efficient, I'll bet! |
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