2013 Ford Cmax Energi steering problems

“While driving car, power steering will fail and deactivate leaving the steering extremely heavy and manual. Can happen at any speed, and has happened on the interstate at highway speeds. Information cluster states, "power steering fault - service power steering immediately" When this happens it is highly unsafe and happens instantly without warning. Makes getting the car off the road and stopped safely very difficult and dangerous. Stopping the car, turning it off fully and restarting seems to clear the fault and makes the car power steering operate as normal again. But this has happened many times since owning the car and I can find no reason when or why it gets triggered. Online searches find many other owners of this car describing the exact same issue and they share the same concerns about it being unsafe.”

“Got a “Power steering assist fault” message on the screen. It was very hard to steer the wheel. The case on the wheel was turning around it. Managed to drive 3 more miles to the dealership. A lot of other ford models have same issues, even under 50.000 miles. And many of the are in recall program, but not 2013 ford c-max. Can’t afford 3.400$ price for fixing it at the dealership. I’m a second owner, bought it for 5.000 , 3 years ago. At least it didn’t stuck completely, and I didn’t Die”

“On the morning of 12/13/23 I got in my car to go to work. Upon starting my car the warning light for service power steering came on. I noticed the car was very hard to steer when existing my drive way. I drove the car back into my neighborhood to see if it was safe to drive in traffic. The steering was so tight and steering wheel would fight me wanting to return to center. With the fault code still present I went home and inspected the steering system and hooked up my scan tool to the OBD port. I had a fault code of 3000-53 and 3000-49. The 3000-53 would not clear. I have found online other Fford vehicles with recalls for the same steering system setup, but not on the Ford C Max. If this had happened when I was driving on the road at a high rate of speed it would have caused a serious accident, as the steering was very unresponsive and actually fighting my input of direction.”

“I went to change lanes and all of a sudden the steering became difficult. I thought the car had lost power, but it was only the steering. The sudden loss came as a surprise and did cause me to loose control momentarily during the lane change. Shortly thereafter a warning light came on indicating the power steering needed to be serviced. I was able to arrive at my destination safely, but power steering was completely out. Upon restarting the car the problem went away. Returning home later that evening the problem returned about 5 miles into my trip. I returned home and shortly after brought the car to the auto parts store to see if there was a code on their scan tool. No codes, but this time when the car was started the warning light came on immediately and power steering has quit working 100% of the time.”

“The contact owns a 2013 Ford C-Max Energi. The contact stated while driving approximately 30 MPH, the steering wheel locked up. The contact stated that it was difficult to turn the steering wheel. The contact received help from her passenger to pull off the road. The contact stopped and turned off and restarted the vehicle and the power steering functionality returned. The contact stated no warning light was illuminated. The contact stated that the failure was intermittent. The contact stated that she had stopped driving the vehicle. The contact had not taken the vehicle to a local dealer or independent mechanic. The vehicle had not been diagnosed nor repaired. The manufacturer had not been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 140,000.”

“Steering warning light came on after driving away from home. Power Steering failed, no possible way to move steering wheel. Powered vehicle off. Next day, steering worked and took vehicle to Ford Dealer. Upon inspection by Dealer, the steering gear failed and needs to be replaced. Vehicle has less than 50,000 miles driven. In my opinion, this is a manufacturing issue that Ford needs to review and possibly recall. This could have been very serious had the failure occurred while I was driving the vehicle.”