NHTSA Complaint #11704082 — 2020 CHEVROLET SILVERADO 1500

On Sunday Nov. 16th, my steering wheel felt like it was "slipping", akin to how it feels when your serpentine belt tensioner is failing. I checked it out while wife turned the wheel, didn't see any problem, and we went on our way. Later in the day as we were leaving a parking lot, the problem occurred again but worse. And we got a warning about trailer brake controller needs repair. After reviewing similar problems on Reddit, I found it was still safe to drive, so we drove home without further incident. Monday I decided to take it to O'Reilly auto parts and have a code scan done. Except, as soon as I turned out of the driveway, my wheel completely froze up solid. I could NOT move the wheel (q2)! Since the wheel was still turned, I backed it into the driveway and we took our car to buy our own code scanner. It showed more than just one fault code for the brakes, there were 5. I called Fox Chevrolet to schedule al appointment for the next day. Fortunately, the failure occurred as the Advisor attempted to turn the wheel (q3). Long story short: problem was a rusted/rotted out ground wire (q1)! Behind the front driver side tire, encased in a boot. Tech told the Advisor he'd never seen that one before. $40 part, and $400 to install it (q4). I was happy it wasn't a power steering rack failure (electric) but the more I thought about it, felt I needed to report this. You needed a dealer scanner to catch this and trace it to a ground fault. Probably better for you to contact dealer Advisor and Tech to get a better breakdown on this (q1). Dealer was great, they could have sold me an $1800 steering rack and I'd have never known. Could this failure have happened to someone driving on the street and this pop up all of a sudden (q2)? I believe so. Glad I didn't find out firsthand. The problem went away overnight twice, and then all of a sudden your wheel is LOCKED. I'm curious as to if others are or have faced this, thus my submittal. Thanks for your time.