NHTSA Complaint #11453593 — 2011 HONDA CR-Z

On February 15 I took a short drive into Woodstock, Vt. My trip into Woodstock was without incident, except for the fact that I got a "check tire pressure" alert, probably due to the very cold weather. When I finished my business and restarted the car, there was an additional alert: "check power steering". The car previously had no issues with steering. I drove the car to another nearby parking spot. There was no power assist at all. I wrestled the car into the parking space and called AAA for a tow. The tow truck driver arrived in about an hour. He asked for the keys and started the car. The problem had disappeared. With a friend tailing me I drove to a nearby auto repair shop, asked them to investigate and told them I would pick the car up the next day. They called me the next day and informed me that they had connected the car to the computer analyzer and found no problem. They had also driven the car on the day I dropped it off and again the next day and were unable to reproduce the problem. I went online and discovered others have had similar issues: https://www.crzforum.com/threads/scary-power-steering-eps-issue.87738/ and https://www.carcomplaints.com/Honda/CR-Z/2011/steering/steering.shtml. I contacted my nearest Honda dealership as well as Honda USA. I received no substantive help from either party, although Honda USA did suggest I bring it to the dealer for repair, which I will attempt to do tomorrow. I don't know what the threshold is for generating a recall, but the possible consequences of this problem are so serious that I wanted to share my experience. My car has less than 30,000 miles.