sudden steering lock + all dash lights while driving

[pleiadesfella]

hey fellas,

I apologize for spamming this forum with individual threads, but today something very alarming happened while driving my spec b and it's got me stumped.

I had driven the car safely back from storage earlier in the week and to costco just yesterday, and it was fine. today however, I was driving out to town with my dad and just as we got to a roundabout, the steering suddenly locked (like how it is when the car is off), all dash lights came on and the car warned me to put the e-brake down (though it was already down since I started driving), but the engine was still running and the dash was still working. I was somehow able to brute force the wheel and steer out of the roundabout to a safe spot thankfully, but it could have ended REALLY badly as there was a police car right in front of me in the roundabout.

I turned the car off and restarted, all lights were gone and steering was back to normal but the car was failing to hold a warm idle properly (kept dropping to ~300rpms and sputtering) and it shook the whole car whenever the idle dropped. it felt like a misfire, so I plugged my AP in to check what was going on. all values I read on the AP were normal - DAM was a solid 1, feedback knock didn't exceed -1.40, no fine knock learning and most importantly, no consistent misfire on any cylinders. I've always had some odd singular roughness readings on cylinder 1, but today it only went up to 1 and that's it, there wasn't any misfire when revving or even when the idle dropped. I checked also checked my afr and it sticks to ~14.5 at idle and up to 20.33 when higher in the rev range, though I didn't go up to redline. I've always had these afr values since I bought the car, so nothing struck me as odd.

I immediately drove the car back home and did some further testing with the AP plugged in and couldn't get it to replicate the idle dropping or shaking, everything seemed fine. I read codes and got a P0172 system too rich bank 1 code, but there's no CEL and I think that may be due to the catless dp and tune for it. while I doubt running rich would have caused the steering lock, it would explain the bad idle that happened right afterwards. gonna try cleaning the maf and replacing the air filter in the meantime just to see if it changes anything, though like I said my afr values seemed fine. I'm hoping it's not a problem with the injectors or the tune itself.

any ideas on what could have caused the sudden lock and bad warm idle? could it just be related to the running rich code or is it something else? after seeing the OK readings on the AP, I thought it could be one of the engine mounts finally giving up but I doubt that would cause the idle to drop, leaving me to suspect a fueling issue. any help and pointers would be appreciated, thanks

[KZJonny]

At a guess, it sounds like wiring. Or bad grounds/poor power to the power steering pump (for one) and maybe somewhere else causing poor running conditions.

Without a meaningful CEL. That’s at least where I would start?

[SoobyDoobyDoo]

Check your alternator. Same thing happened to the wife last year in her 2006 Tribeca. Dash lit up like a Christmas tree and it quit on her. Thankfully, it was an easy fix. Also keep in mind if your sensors don’t get a specific electrical signal they’ll light up cause they think somethings wrong. I’d start there. 

[pleiadesfella]

On 4/19/2024 at 10:54 PM, KZJonny said:

At a guess, it sounds like wiring. Or bad grounds/poor power to the power steering pump (for one) and maybe somewhere else causing poor running conditions.

Without a meaningful CEL. That’s at least where I would start?

I doubt it was power steering related because it felt more like an ignition steering lock, the wheel only turned a couple of degrees at most instead of just being stiff and hard to steer. but wiring/grounds seems like a good thing to check, I'll have that looked into.

 

5 hours ago, SoobyDoobyDoo said:

Check your alternator. Same thing happened to the wife last year in her 2006 Tribeca. Dash lit up like a Christmas tree and it quit on her. Thankfully, it was an easy fix. Also keep in mind if your sensors don’t get a specific electrical signal they’ll light up cause they think somethings wrong. I’d start there. 

yeah after some further thinking, I had a similar idea that it could be battery or alternator related as it was almost like the car thought it was turned off for a second, locking the steering and throwing all the lights (similar to how it is when the car is off but the key is in the on position). the random e-brake warning also makes me think that it was likely an electrical issue.

as for the sensors, there's likely something wrong there too since I got that P0172 code after the incident. I have an appointment on may 2 for a general checkover + front brake replacement, but I'm going to have the shop specifically check the alternator, wiring, sensors and fueling now too.

thanks for the help once again guys. I definitely don't want the steering lock to happen again as that was the most dangerous thing to happen to me behind the wheel. I don't even wanna know how it would've ended if my steering went out like that on the curved onramp I took right before it happened.

[pleiadesfella]

update: today I took the car to the shop for the new brakes and to get it looked over to find any issues. they reported that the car had no codes (my P0172 seems to be intermittent and random) and checked all the grounds and electrical connections and said everything was in good shape. they took it for a test drive and the tech said the car was in great shape, he didn't encounter any issues and said the car was running perfectly fine. they suspect the sudden lock may be related to a stall, but like I explained here, the car was already moving when it happened - it was not after a stop and go.

what he said combined with my intermittent P0172 (which causes unstable and very low idle revs) makes me think what happened was the car had a weird mid-drive stall due to the extremely low revs while my foot was on the clutch going into the roundabout. I didn't notice this at all, but I wasn't paying attention to the revs. the engine was running still, but I think it may have pop started after I downshifted and let off the clutch, though I also didn't feel anything like that happen. I think there's no other explanation as to why this happened since the car was idling really low right after the lock incident and constantly feeling like it was going to stall even in neutral.

I called a trusted subaru tuner in my region and told them about the P0172, and they think the air/fuel ratio sensor is the culprit as they've been seeing that code often with the afr sensor being the issue. as for the steering lock they had no clue, but I'm gonna go with the stall theory as its all I have right now.

the car still has inconsistent warm idles (when I got back from the shop today, it was going as low as 500 rpm when trying to park), but no codes right now. I'm gonna replace the afr sensor and see if that fixes it.

I hope this helps anyone having similar issues. I'd hate for this to happen to anyone else on the road.