I bought a 2010 Legacy 2.0 Diesel two weeks ago. As I was maneuvering on full lock to park into this tiny spot, the steering wheel suddenly become exceedingly heavy, almost with complete locking of the wheel. I restarted the car several times with no luck, I couldnt turn the wheel either direction. No noise coming from the car whatsoever. Funny thing is, as soon as I hit the gas (its a manual) the wheel started responding, so it was locked only at idle. I managed to drive home like that, but i felt that the wheel was becoming very heavy every now and then during this ride home. Even more funnier, the steering was just fine this morning, everything looked and felt normal!

Any ideas what the problem could be?

 

Check the power steering belt isn't slipping.

 

could it happen when turning full lock (and kind of putting too much pressure to the steering wheel)?

 

Have you checked the fluid level??

 

the fluid is OK

 

i am suspecting it may be an electronics issue, i heard new subarus have an independent power steering system that takes power from the battery and not the engine

 

Legacy diesels have no power steering pump so there is no way the belt could be slipping so that rules that reply out.

Doesn't have a power steering reservoir either or non I've worked on have one as its purely done via an electronic motor powered by the CPU located in the engine bay.

The main key points to get checked out is what's the battery state of charge & out put from the alternator ?

SSM3 needs hooked up to have a look on the steering system diagnostics and see what codes are present, I changed a cpu today due to error 31 cropping up which meant the cpu was failing.

Has the car had the steering roll connector service campaign carried out and the angle sensors reset to neutral ?

Thats as much info as I can give you for the time being as I'd need to have codes from the steering section of the car to tell you more.

Hope this helps

 

hey, thanks a lot. here is an update:

I took it to the dealer, they took one day and couldnt find anything and sent me home. They said they checked the whole system. But I reproduced the same problem again today: When the car is warm and is idling, I turn the steering wheel right and left a few times and it starts becoming very heavy. After a few more turns, it becomes completely stuck. The problem goes away after the car is turned off and cools down in half an hour or so.

"Has the car had the steering roll connector service campaign carried out and the angle sensors reset to neutral ? "

I am not aware of this, but the car has been serviced recently at the dealer so maybe they did it? (i am in a german speaking country which makes communication a bit of a problem)

 

UPDATE 2:

the dealer says everything is normal, the ECU is trying to prevent damage to the electric power steering system under excessive load. My trouble is, that I can give this "excessive load" during parking into a tight space. Isn't this faulty design? Any suggestions for improvement (other than my driving skills)?

Apparently, some driving schools who own Subaru's also complained about this problem, and maybe Subaru fixed it in later models (2010 and up). My car is the first version of the new, 5th gen, Legacy.

 

I've never heard of this before about it preventing damage

You will find on Engine idle while turning the steering if there are not enough amps being supplied by the alternator or the battery is starting to age the ecu simple switches things off to stop the car from cutting off vital components like the engine, How old is the battery & how does it check out