Steering locked while driving

[Noxian]

I'd suggest it's an electrical connection issue - hard acceleration makes things twist and flex, and inertia may make wires shift. You slow down or let off, things return to normal.
Give a nice bullet-point explanation of timing, conditions when it happens, etc. to the dealer.
Cold temps also impact electric connections.

If you had JSCAN, you could set it up to monitor the EHPS pump operation.

I do have jscan, ill try to do that, thanks.

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[Chubbier Wombat]

Signed up to forum today and I'm glad I found this post. I had the same thing happen to me on the highway with my pregnant wife and son in the vehicle. I was able to get pulled off the highway and the steering came back. I scheduled an appointment with my local dealer to have it looked at.

 

[Noxian]

Yup it's pretty scary when it happens, what year and sub model do you have?

 

[Chubbier Wombat]

2021 Mojave. My turn signal has been working intermittently as well the past couple weeks so I assume it might be related to the bad ground folks are talking about.

 

[Noxian]

Back at the dealer today trying to get this fixed, they can't reproduce it so they don't try anything. It almost caused me to get into a serious accident couple weeks ago. It's at the point I won't let anyone else drive it until its fixed.I. Even told them about the y95 recall on the Wranglers.

 

[@californiajeeping]

Mine has done this 4 times now since new. It happens when I floor it and let off to go into a turn dead stick until stopped for 5 seconds. No codes no explanation dealers said without a code they won’t find the issue

 

[High Alextude]

If this happened to mine, I’d sell it, that sounds downright scary and dangerous. Is it a steering box issue itself or something electrical within it? I wonder if a PSC steering kit would help? I hope you guys are able to find a solution and nobody gets hurt.

https://www.northridge4x4.com/part/...jNtOJvVnapAMJTc1tT-EmBZqQDIbBIHhoCsxkQAvD_BwE

 

[@californiajeeping]

with no codes and good voltage I think the pump shuts off for unknown reasons

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Likely bad ground (or other connection, but grounds are a known issue)
One thing that could be done - assuming it can be reproduced by some sudden change in speed or direction - monitor the EHPS pump operation using software like JSCAN or similar and try to force the issue in some open area.
If it's a bad ground it will likely show that the EHPS pump is operating - but it won't be.

There's been a lot of talk in the forums about where the grounds are for the EHPS among other things, and the grounds to check. Jeep even has documents on ground locations that should be checked.

EHPS pump also goes through the high current fuse array so check the connection there (N6) but my bet is on grounds. It's a high current draw so any problem with the ground, voltage drop across the connection, is going to show by stalling the pump.

Not sure if I have anything that indicates which ground the EHPS pump uses.

 

[Noxian]

So I guess engineering got back to the dealership, they said to try the Wrangler (y95 recall?) software update for the same issue and see if it fixes the problem....

 

[@californiajeeping]

Likely bad ground (or other connection, but grounds are a known issue)
One thing that could be done - assuming it can be reproduced by some sudden change in speed or direction - monitor the EHPS pump operation using software like JSCAN or similar and try to force the issue in some open area.
If it's a bad ground it will likely show that the EHPS pump is operating - but it won't be.

There's been a lot of talk in the forums about where the grounds are for the EHPS among other things, and the grounds to check. Jeep even has documents on ground locations that should be checked.

EHPS pump also goes through the high current fuse array so check the connection there (N6) but my bet is on grounds. It's a high current draw so any problem with the ground, voltage drop across the connection, is going to show by stalling the pump.

Not sure if I have anything that indicates which ground the EHPS pump uses.

if you could post the ground locations that would be helpful. My Jeep has a few extra battery to chassis grounds, a larger odyssey battery, and removed the aux (this was done recently and the issue still persists). My voltage is very stable.

I can monitor voltage with the banks gauge and it never goes low when it happens. I wonder if the steering pump has a dedicated ground I can check?

 

[Maximus Gladius]

if you could post the ground locations that would be helpful. My Jeep has a few extra battery to chassis grounds, a larger odyssey battery, and removed the aux (this was done recently and the issue still persists). My voltage is very stable.

I can monitor voltage with the banks gauge and it never goes low when it happens. I wonder if the steering pump has a dedicated ground I can check?

This video is interesting and shows the ground wire location on a diesel whos steering pump had quit and this guy found his ground location. It’s a thing to note and look for our location for the 3.6.

Go to 2:11

 

[@californiajeeping]

This video is interesting and shows the ground wire location on a diesel whos steering pump had quit and this guy found his ground location. It’s a thing to note and look for our location for the 3.6.

Go to 2:11

I have a diesel so that does help

 

[Maximus Gladius]

I have a diesel so that does help

Let us know if it’s the same location for you.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

The thing about grounds is that, just for example, if some controlling module sends a pin high to trigger a relay or whatever, then it assumes it has done the job - but the pump won't operate because the path to ground from the pump has a high enough voltage drop............

A similar comparison - headlights in an older car. People change over to relays to feed power to the headlights and wonder - why aren't they brighter? Because there's still a 1+ volt drop across the headlight ground to chassis terminal. I found headlights operating on 11 volts even when the engine was running and the system voltage was 14. I measured voltage drop and clearly half of the problem was on the ground side so no matter how good the supply is, it won't work if there's no good path back out.
Grounds can look good - they can feel tight, but until you either put a wrench to the bolt or nut, or even take the connection apart and clean, you are only guessing (unless you actually use a volt meter to measure for any drop across the connection.)

If I recall, there's a setting in JSCAN to turn on the EHPS pump and if that's the case and you found the ground, you could measure from the battery negative terminal to the end of the wire where it's attached to the chassis and see if there's a difference. The pump would have to be running to be able to see anything there. (maybe I'm thinking of the cooling fan it can trigger, but it seems I've seen where it can cause the EHPS pump to run as well)

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