Good day. Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I own a paid-off 2010 Elantra and have had few problems with it until now - the power steering motor has gone kaput. It’s got a touch under 200 000 kms, and my trusted mechanic has informed me that Hyundai no longer makes the part. He’s checking parts yards but has had no luck so far.
In the interim, would the vehicle be driveable/safe without power assist?
Thanks!
Mark B
We drove cars without power steering for the first 90 years of cars. So, yes, it is safe. But the effort will be quite high while parking and your ability to quickly steer around sudden obstacles will suffer.
+1
In The Good Old Days, we all had “armstrong steering”, and we were able to deal with it only because steering in those days was “slow”, with as many as 6 turns lock to lock. On modern cars with PS, the number of turns lock-to-lock is probably about 3, meaning that w/o power assist, it will require a lot of strength, and your ability to steer around sudden situations could be difficult. And, parallel parking will be quite a chore.
Yes, driving will be “do-able”, but this problem needs to be fixed a.s.a.p.
Car could have elec steering. My car has boost motor under dash. Not on rack style. Does it work well with dead boost motor? I think OP would say if car is hard to drive as is.
It is electric steering, and the power steering was functional but increasingly ‘loose’-feeling over the past few months (compounded by the fact that my new-driver son ‘bumped’ a curb recently).
I took it in, and the tie-rod ends and lower control arms needed work. After that was done, the shop informed me that the steering motor died on the test drive.
That would suggest that the “bump” was actually a pretty serious impact.
You might want to check this out.
https://autoservice.hyundaiusa.com/Campaign127/MicroSiteTemplate/MicroSiteTemplateVINValidate/81
Tester
They may have failed to reconnect the motor properly. It probably didn’t fail on the test drive. It probably didn’t work since they took it off the lift after fixing the steering parts. But there is no way to know for sure. On Fords the E.P.S. has fault codes that can be found using a Ford specific scan tool.
You might want to check this out.
I checked and it is apparently not part of the recall.
I just called the shop for an update - they’re working on some leads in the US (I’m in Canada) and have stated that the vehicle is not safe to drive due to the risk of the power steering mechanism binding up. This doesn’t strike me as an unreasonable concern.
I don’t know if the steering was throwing codes for them but they’re a decent indy shop and I trust that they have diagnosed it with due diligence.
Yeah I had words with the boy, impressing on him the importance of being more careful.
Don’t know about the binding up or the electric pump failure, but you would just have to see how hard the steering is without the assist.
My water pump went out on the way to work which meant the belt would not stay on. I had everything I could do to crank the wheel around the block and to the next exit to a shop. Both hands with all my might. Not easy. But that was a Buick.
I’ve been to both of those you pull yards. Good resource but bring tools. Wheel barrows provided. 
The motor is attached to the steering column under the dash, why would someone remove the under dash panel (depending on room and if needed) crawl under the dash to unplug the motor to change out a tie rod end, much less a control arm??? The OP said the power steering was increasingly getting worse before his son hit the curb…
I have had parts fail while in the shop that had nothing to do with what it was in for…
lets see, I’ve had fuel pumps, cam and crank sensors, alternator kicked a bearing out and many more… crap happens, it is not always the shops fault…
okay I understand. But I thought the “increasingly ‘loose’-feeling over the past few months” was due to worn tie rod parts, not the power steering itself. I would power steering feel “loose”?
Maybe OP will get really narrow tires, like spare tire donuts installed in the front to make it easier to steer!
My teenage son would consider that an affront to his Manhood.
Yeah I should do it.
