Power Steering Failure after Suspension Install

Never had any issues with the power steering. Yesterday I installed springs and struts. Once I was finished, I turned the car on to pull it out of the garage and noticed the red power steering light and the car was very hard to steer.

Vagcom shows code 00573 (steering torque sensor). I tried driving the car hoping it would reset. Reset it via vagcom multiple times. Nothing works. Although I was nowhere near any steering wires during the install, I checked all the connections, checked all fuses, everything looks good.

I'm stumped and planning on taking it to the dealer on Monday. After talking to a VW tech, it seems that the steering torque sensor went bad and the car will need a new steering rack. Seems like a hell of a coincidence that the rack failed within the three hours it took to install the suspension.

Any ideas? This is driving me nuts! :help:

Did you try disconnecting the battery for a period of time?

The Fed said:

Did you try disconnecting the battery for a period of time?

Click to expand...

Yes, I tried that multiple times. Didn't clear the light or anything.

Just looked up the sensor in the Bentley ...the whole rack does need to be replaced. Have them hook the car up to the Guided Fault Finder 5051 before doing the replacement just to make sure that's the problem. It's quite a huge job!

Warranty covered my steering rack... it's not a cheap piece. I hope you are still under warranty even after the suspension install.

damn man that sucks. what dealership are you taking it too? maybe i'll see your rabbit when i drop mine off for it's oil change on monday

Of course I'm out of warranty (54k). I was actually at my Dad's place in Palmyra, PA to install the suspension, so today it is at a dealer in Lebanon. They said it is most likely the rack and "they may work with me" since I'm just out of warranty. I'll update the thread with whatever happens.

Thanks guys.

Alright guys, just an update to this thread for anybody searching in the future...


I spent a day checking all the wiring, fuses, etc related to the electromechanical steering and found nothing wrong. I dropped it off at the dealer for them to run the codes on last time and to check into any other sources of my problem. They told me the steering torque sensor was bad and I would need to replace the steering rack.

Since I'm 4000 miles out of warranty :mad0259:, I was getting dealer quotes of $1400-1900 for the job! No thanks. I ended up finding a rack at a salvage yard from a wrecked rabbit. The rack only had 6000 miles on it and only cost me $100. :happyanim:

Installation was pretty straight forward. Once complete, I turned on the car. The red power steering light was now yellow. After driving a few figure eights in a parking lot, the light cleared and everything worked normally.

Thanks to everyone for the input to my problem. The moral of my story is that the power steering rack CAN fail at the exact same moment you lower your car an drive you crazy trying to figure out what you did to it.

- Justin

Glad that worked out for you man!

Whenever I can, I like to work on and fix my own cars too.

Props to you man, I was reading the comments hoping you hadnt had the dealer do the work for you since I know steering racks could be found for cheap.

I love that the gti shares alot of parts with the Rabbit which leads to us being able to find parts for cheaper since theres way more Rabbit's than gti's.

Great job undertaking the rack install and major props for actually giving us an update. So many threads end without an explanation of how a problem was solved. This info will be valuable to someone else down the road.

yo
thats the same shit happened to me....what a coincidence
i changed the springs, and red light show up..

lucky my car was under warannty only fix was replace the steering rack

vw has some shitty powersteering........my car was pretty new with only 10,000 km....:thumbdown: