NHTSA Complaint #11704062 — 2016 CHEVROLET COLORADO

The electric power steering system on my vehicle intermittently fails while I am driving. When the failure occurs, the steering suddenly becomes extremely heavy and difficult to control, creating an immediate safety risk to me and to others on the road. The loss of power steering has happened multiple times with no advance warning. Each time, the only way to temporarily restore normal steering is to pull over, turn the vehicle off, and restart it. The problem occurs randomly and without a pattern. The vehicle is available for inspection upon request. The issue has been evaluated by the dealer’s service center. They were not able to reproduce the failure during their inspection, but they did confirm that the vehicle had stored a diagnostic trouble code indicating a power steering failure. The service center reported that the code was too generic to determine the root cause, and no repair was performed. They acknowledged that the steering failure had occurred based on the stored code, but could not identify why it was happening. During the failures, the vehicle displays warning messages stating that both Stabilitrak and Power Steering have failed. These messages appear only at the moment of failure, with no prior warning lights or symptoms. This intermittent loss of power steering severely compromises safe operation of the vehicle, especially when turning at low speeds, entering or exiting parking lots, or navigating intersections. It puts me, my passengers, and the surrounding drivers and pedestrians at risk because the vehicle cannot be steered normally when the failure occurs.