Am I Missing My Steering Rotation Sensor???

[AustinD]

2010 Fusion SE 2.5L

 

Hello,

 

I'm new to the site, I've never had to post on a Forum before now but here I am because I can't find any answers on the internet.  I will go into detail of all the events in case someone else has the same issue.

 

About a month ago, I replaced my battery and made the mistake of connecting it the wrong way.  My excuse is that it was dark out, oops.  The terminals were only connected to the car for a split second because when I connected the car's ground wire to the positive terminal on the battery, I saw the sparks and realized I was an idiot.  Repositioned the battery properly, connected the terminals and started the car.  Everything was fine except the radio and some button backlighting wasn't working.  I figured I was lucky.  After checking all the fuses and replacing the blown ones, the radio and the backlighting work again.  But then, a couple days later I was driving home and the "Service power steering now" and "Service advancetrac" warning messages popped up but the power steering still worked.  UNTIL, I got home, turned the car off then turned it back on and at that point I had lost power steering.  Fast forward a month of researching online and taking the car to a shop to diagnose, they said that the steering angle sensor was reading something like 2000 degrees to the left but the PCM seemed to be fine.  I didn't want to pay them to do anything further so I wrote down the codes and decided to order a new steering angle sensor.

 

However, when I finally took off the steering wheel and clock spring to replace the sensor, I found that in the space where there was supposed to be the sensor, there was an empty hole and I did not see any dangling wire behind the steering column to plug into my new sensor.  Am I missing something here?  Does the clockspring in the 2010 SE 2.5L contain a steering angle sensor inside it?

 

The steering angle sensor part number: 6L2T-3F818-AC

 

Here are the codes that came up:

U0253 "Lost communication with accessory protocol interface module"

U0028 "Vehicle communication Bus A"

C1277 "Steering wheel angle 1 and 2 circuit malfunction"

 

Any help will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[bangster]

With EPAS it is on the rack, I believe that location is for the Sport only that still has hydraulic assisted power steering.

[bangster]

That first code should be gone if your radio now works. the second one, I am not sure about. the last one means the ABS is not receiving the signal from the rack with the steering angle.

 

It is a pretty common issue with the Fusion, I doubt it has anything to do with the battery mix up, but maybe it sped up the failure. There are no normally serviceable items on the EPAS rack, sold as an assembly, but you can check the external wiring and connectors.

 

Do you have a way to read PIDs (like Torque app and an OBD-II adapter) or have an VOM?

 

This PDF has some details on the pinpoint tests for this failure. http://askatech.com/AskATechLive/forums/ResourceHandler.ashx?a=11570