Dodge

Making a left hand turn onto major highway and suddenly the steering is non existent, steering wheel freewheels , ended up on road shoulder but no control of vehicle.
detachment of coupler is a safety feature when the ecu senses an collision is occurring; however no accident, simply normal driving.
Repairs required new upper and lower coupler and new clockspring $3000+ ,
Anyone experience this before , my master tech with 30 yrs experience had no explanation why and could it happen again in normal driving.
18 years of Lexus vehicles and never an issue til now.

2013FSport

iTrader: (2)

Hi and welcome to CL.
Straight up your mechanic smoking something and full of secrets and lies!! From the steering wheel to the rack and pinion are metal shafts with U-joints. There is no decoupling device on the steering shaft of these or any other cars. That is such hogwash!!!

Points of failure are worn U-joints. Most drivers would feel something isn't correct as they get crunchy, bind, and make noise. The intermediate shaft with its two u-joints are splined to the rack & pinion and steering column, then secured with a pinch bolt. If prior work left the pinch bolt loose, and it fell out, the shaft could decouple and do what you explained allowing the wheel to spin freely and damage the clock spring.

Was the rack ever replaced or maybe the starter? People remove the intermediate shaft to replace the exhaust manifold and starter. My guess is someone's prior work caused this failure.

Mainly I'm taking my time to write you and tell you you got screwed with lies and material cost depending on what magical decoupler said mechanic replaced.

Take a look at the components here. Nothing is meant to disconnect to 'save you'. It's all designed to do the opposite. Stay connected.

PS clockspring is $300 new.
My guess is item 45206 ($250) in the second picture is the item either secured or replaced. I'd guess I could replace both in 1.5 hours total.



Hopefully your former mechanic has an explanation for himself.

GL

Dodge

Tks for the info , pinch bolt as you say became loose from previous work. The vehicle was serviced since new at a Lexus dealer and service records did not indicate damage to vehicle ( I have only owned the vehicle for 2 years but have the service records since new.
All parts were original Lexus replacement $$.
Great diagrams !!