1st EX35 problem: steering column motor failure

[RCHarris]

Naturally, the steering column motor (up and down, not in and out) decided to fail when the steering wheel was in its lowest position setting so I've been driving with the steering wheel in my lap. Can't see the gauges because the wheel is in the way. Yikes!

No worries, dealer is taking care of it tomorrow. Service tech says it's the only common EX35 issue that has popped up so far. Says it appears mostly on earlier cars - mine is an '08 built in Nov/Dec '07. Just a heads up for you folks out there. You may end up with a hinky steering column/wheel in the near future.

I've now owned the car for 14 months and have just over 10k miles on it. So far, with the exception of shockingly bad fuel mileage, the car has been a pleasure to own. This is my first real problem. Gotta love that!

Randy

[EibachMBZ]

My car was built on Mar/08 and my steering motor failed the first day I drove it back from dealership.

[jonkarn]

Same here. I brought it back the next day and they replaced it in 30minutes. Seems to be a common problem. Works fine now. No worries.

[Jackintx]

How about that?? Mine failed last week. I bought the car at the end of Jan '08. Only 5K miles on it now. My dealer wanted 3 hours to fix it. Gave me a loaner. For some reason, when I got it back, I had to re-set the seat positions and bluetooth had to be re-initialized. Other than that the repair seems OK.

[br0wser]

Mine had to be replaced too. Got it in August 08, and went bad in September. They also disabled the automatic up/down on start/stop, and I didn't bother to reenable it - hopefully it will last longer...

[SteveTheTech]

This type of component failure will without fail either just as you take delivery of it or when the in-laws are in the car asking questions and quietly judging. Fortunately for you all there is a voluntary campaign out now to make sure everyone knows about this and it will be resolved without question.