2022 TESLA MODEL X Steering Problems

While driving my 2022 Tesla Model X at highway speed, I experienced a sudden loss of steering assist shortly after Supercharging. The steering wheel became extremely difficult to turn, and I had to use significant force to maintain control. The vehicle displayed a ‘Steering Assist Reduced’ alert, FSD became unavailable, and the suspension behaved unexpectedly. After the incident, the vehicle was taken to Tesla service. At this time, I have not received a clear explanation of the root cause of the steering‑assist loss. Because this event occurred at highway speed and created a safety concern, I am submitting this report so the incident can be documented and reviewed.

On January 31, 2026, at 10:30 PM, I was driving from Fort Lauderdale to my home in Boca Raton, Florida. I was using FSD supervised mode. Close to my home, a big red image suddenly appeared, the car started accelerating fast, and I had no control over the car or its steering wheel. The car hit several electrical posts and only stopped after the airbags engaged. My wife was in the passenger seat. The front of the car was totally damaged, and I will have to total it.

I am writing to formally document a life-threatening mechanical failure involving my 2022 Model X on January 30, 2026. While my wife was operating the vehicle, it suffered a simultaneous and catastrophic collapse of all primary safety systems. During operation, the vehicle experienced a total loss of steering and braking control. This was accompanied by a rapid cascade of critical system alerts on the primary display, including “ABS Malfunction,” “Stability Control Disabled,” and “Steering Assist Reduced/Disabled.” Most critically, the vehicle exhibited Sudden Unintended Acceleration (SUA), increasing speed in direct opposition to the driver’s physical application of the brake pedal. This resulted in a near-miss where the driver narrowly avoided a construction crew.

As I was attempting to merge onto Interstate 75, I noticed that steering became unexpectedly difficult. Consequently, I decided not to enter the highway. I then crossed the highway and pulled into a parking lot, where I turned off the vehicle. Upon restarting the vehicle, the issue seemed to have resolved itself.

To Whom It May Concern, I am writing to inform you of a recurring issue I am experiencing with the power steering in my 2022 Model X Plaid. This problem began on [XXX] and has progressively worsened. Initially, the power steering would function normally for approximately 30 minutes of driving. It would work fine when starting in the morning or when the car was cool. However, after driving about 15 miles, the power steering would completely fail, and a warning message would appear indicating that extra effort was required. Recently, the power steering now fails every time I drive. Based on my research, this appears to be a common problem with Tesla vehicles, and I understand a recall has been issued for some model years, although not for the year of my vehicle. I intend to have this issue addressed and repaired through Tesla service. However, I wanted to make...

While driving my Model X 2022 I noticed the warning "Steering assist reduced, Steering may require increased effort". I was then at a red light and I started to make a left turn and I could BARELY turn the wheel it was like it was almost locked up. Luckily I had enough strength and I was driving into a parking lot where I needed to have my car towed. Tesla service just said there was moisture in the steering wheel connector and they just cleaned it up and connected it. They test drove it and said it's fine. 4 days later I was driving it on the highway and I got the message again and I had my daughter in the car and was terrified. Luckily the steering did not lock up and just drove it home. I have messaged Tesla to see next steps, but when I look at...

My Tesla stopped in the middle of a 4 way intersection without notice. As I was turning left, the car started to shake for about 2 seconds and then stopped. No warning or anything. The notification stated "electrical system unable to support functions." My safety was put at risk and others. I was traveling with my 11 month old and other cars could have hit my car if they were not paying attention when coming through the intersection. The car was towed to the Tesla dealership. No warnings prior to the failure. Warnings appeared after the car stopped.

I was getting a message on my display saying: Steering assist reduced Steering may require increased effort. But in reality, it requires all my strength, to turn the wheel. Very dangerous. Tesla charge to fix $4,100. I’ll have to pay it.

We bought the Tesla Model X as a CPO vehicle from Tesla on [XXX]. Within the first 2 months of driving the car we saw an an alert for “Steering assist reduced” and shortly after the steering wheel locked up making the car inoperable. This has happened twice while driving: [XXX] [XXX] This puts the driver and passengers at huge risk because the car was unable to turn while blocking a major intersection on [XXX] . We have taken in the vehicle in to Telsa Santa Barbara service center and they were unable to reproduce the issues so they did not make any fixes and returned the vehicle back in the same condition. There was a “Steering assist reduced” warning message to the driver before the steering wheel locked up. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

As I was making an unprotected left turn, the power steering failed. The steering became incredibly heavy. There was almost an accident. Feels unsafe to drive, will be towing to the dealership. Errors: Steering assist reduced, lane assist unavailable. Codes: EPAS3P_a005_sent2mia, torque sensor 2 signal not received.

The location of horn small icon and not in middle of the steering wheel is very hard to locate when you need it and safety concerns. Several times I needed to use the horn in emergency but were not able to locate it when you are in sudden need. Thanks

Many newer models of Teslas do not include a horn in the middle of the steering wheel. Instead there is a small button on the left side which is impossible to find to warn others of a possible collision! The driver gets distracted trying to find the horn and makes the situation even worse by not reacting quick enough. They released a new version of the wheel with a horn but those who are out of warranty have to pay a large amount for a basic yet hugs safety oversight. They should be replaced on with recall free of charge.

On more than one occasion lost power steering and ability to steer properly suddenly in mid drive. It is associated with a warning that comes on at random times saying steering assist reduced

The yoke steering wheel only had a small horn button on the right side, only accessible by right thumb. If you are in the middle of a turn that requires more than a quarter turn, then your hand cannot possible be in the right place to use the horn. The lack of a horn in the center of the steering (like every other car) is unsafe. On many occasions I have found myself needing the horn but unable to press it fast enough and have had to take other evasive actions to avoid other vehicles.

23V-838 This recall made my car less safe, you should not have forced this change on my car I do not like it. It makes the car unsafe

Steering yoke doesn't not have proper mechanical car horn.

Not being able to press the center of the yoke to activate the horn has been a consistent safety problem. Alerting other drivers in an emergency shouldn’t require me to find a small and indistinguishable button on the steering wheel. This has caused multiple incidents that could have been easily avoided with a traditional center horn. I drive my wife and 2 children in this vehicle daily. A horn should just work.

I sometimes hear a creaking noise from under my car when driving and steering at low speed and believe there is a potential defect that poses a risk to motor vehicle safety. I took my car into Tesla but they said they would not look at the car unless they could first hear a noise which is I told them is intermittent. They could nto hear a noise at the time, so did nto look at it. I have on occasion heard the noise again. My car is a year old and had around 5.1k miles when I took it in. It now has around 7,500 miles. I have never had a dealer refuse to put the car on a lift, especially a new car that is under warranty, to examine it based on a complaint from a customer. My concern is that I had read articles of reports to...

The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model X. The contact stated that while driving approximately 55 MPH with the Auto Steering feature deactivated, the message "Auto Steering Unavailable" Suddenly displayed. Approximately three seconds later, the steering wheel erroneously made a sharp turn to the left causing the vehicle to drive into the opposite lane. The contact was able to forcefully turn the steering wheel to the right to avoid colliding head-on into oncoming traffic. The vehicle was later towed to the local service center who confirmed that the failure was caused by an internal fault in the steering column. No further information was available. The vehicle was not yet repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 37,000.

My left turn signal on my steering wheel intermittently wont turn on. Its very annoying I thought it was a software issue and waited because Tesla service center is so bad. After research on the internet forums people have suggested to report this to NHTSA due to no resolutions found.

The design feature of having the HORN be a soft key rather than palming the steering wheel just like every other car, has resulted in multiple occurrences where I tried to honk at someone to avert a collision, and the honk was delayed by hundreds of milliseconds as I had to recall that the horn is a soft key, that I have to hunt for depending on the steering wheel angle, at a critical time when milliseconds count. This is a really hazardous design decision I hope gets changed before it becomes a direct factor in people's deaths.

My 2022 Tesla Model X is equipped with yoke steering wheel with capacitive turn signal buttons integrated, and there's no turn signal stalk. While I like the simplicity, the turn signal buttons sometimes do not respond. It happened about 10x in the past 12 months / 10k miles of ownership. I took the vehicle to Tesla service center twice in the last a few weeks and they couldn't do anything other than a customer paid diagnostics. The most recent occurrence was 9/17. Here's what I put in my service request. "I was about to move to the right lane, but right signal button did not respond for 10-15 seconds. In the meantime, left signal button worked and I was able to activate it twice just to confirm it wasn't my thumb being wet of something else, but the right signal button would not respond at all. I wanted to record...

driving this morning when suddenly the car steering wheel stop responding and will no long turn right or left, and almost Couse to a crash with other cars. calling tow truck to tow the car to Tesla. waiting for diagnostic. car is mostly brand new, super dangerous

At about 11:20pm on September 9th, the steering control went out while we were going around an exit ramp at which point the steering yoke became extremely difficult to use and tried to revert to a straight position in the middle of going around the curve.

I'd like to report a safety concern. There are two issues. 1. the shape of the steering wheel, and 2. the location of the buttons and overall stalkless yoke. I have had this vehicle for a little over a year now, and there have been a number of times both issues could have caused a major accident. The first issue is the shape of the steering wheel. When driving normally, just every day driving, its not so much of an issue. But when you have to make quick, multiple emergency manuvers, the shape of the yoke (the fact that its not round'ish) is problematic. The yoke shape doesn't allow for quick maneuvers that you'd expect in emergency scenarios. The second issue has to do with the location of the high beams and the horn specifically, but could see other buttons being problematic for people with smaller hands than I have....

Steering wheel left and right signals are hard to control while driving. Narrowly escaped accident because I have to look at steering wheel to press signal button. I am not sure how this signal cleared safety concerns. It happened several times , I stop looking at road and find signal to press it.

While driving on an 80 MPH speed limit, 2-lane interstate in a rural area, the vehicle's "traffic aware" cruise control was enabled. The driver attempted to pass a semi-truck on left while the road was curving to the left. The vehicle's emergency lane keep assist appeared to engage causing the vehicle to swerve toward the semi-truck. The driver corrected back to the left, when doing so the power steering system failed causing the driver to apply significant force to the steering to avoid a collision. For the next 12 miles of driving the power steering never engaged and turning required significant force. While charging at a supercharger the error on the dashboard stating that power steering was not available persisted. Upon departure the error message went away and the power steering worked again. The manufacturer was contacted as the vehicle was under warranty. It was determined that no repair was...

In numerous incidents, I have attempted to signal other drivers using my horn in an emergency situation. In one such incident, I was in the left lane, traveling at approx. 40 miles per hour when a driver who was stopped in the right lane began switching into my lane. I went to honk to indicate my presence, but the capacitive touch button on the upper right of the wheel was difficult to locate in a quick emergency situation. Additionally, pressing the center of the wheel, as will honk in every other car on the market did not work. In another incident, I was traveling through an intersection at approx. 50 miles per hour, and an oncoming vehicle attempted to make a left turn as they did not see me (presumably). I attempted to honk, but again, the horn button was very difficult to location in such a quick, high-stakes emergency...

On Tesla's site, it says to report safety concerns to you vs to Tesla so that's what I'm doing since Tesla doesn't have any options to write to them about these problems. 1) I got into a parking lot accident on 7/7/2023 because of the "slide bar" on the Tesla Model X. I have had problems with it and complained to people about it before. If your hand has lotion on it, when you "scroll" up with your finger, it doesn't always "take". That's what happened earlier on 7/7 as well as in the parking lot. I scrolled to go forward, but it didn't scroll so when I hit the "gas" (its electric), it went backwards into the car in back of me. What if the car behind me was a person instead - that would have been awful. Tesla should fix this. 2) Tesla's horn is a small button...

The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model X. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 23V085000 (Steering, Electrical System) however, the part to do the recall repair was unavailable. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the issue. The contact had not experienced a failure. Parts distribution disconnect.

UNKNOWN

Tesla has moved the horn button to be a small touch area within the steering wheel that can be used with the thumb in the right location. I was making a left turn, and a car ran the red light, I was trying to hit the horn and was not able to locate it with my thumb in time. The horn needs to be either made bigger or moved back to the center under the airbag, like all other cars.

This is regarding the 2022 Tesla Model X steering wheel/yoke The button for the left and right turning signal occasionally does not work. When I tried pressing down the bottom, it is stuck and does not produce the haptic vibration It at least malfunctions once every 2-3 days. This is especially dangerous when I am merging onto the freeway, when it suddenly stops working. Tesla first address the issue by replacing the yoke/steering wheel when I brought the car into service on 9/12/2022. However, shortly after leaving the service center, the issue shows up again. I then had to submit a new service request, which was supposed to get fix/replace on 10/14/2022. However, the service center said the part is not available yet, so pushed back the appointment date to 11/07/2022 But they cannot guarantee that the part will be available on that date as well. At this point, I...

In all late 2021 and 2022 Model S and X cars from Tesla, the manufacturer removed the left and right stalks for a) directional signals b) wiper controls c) forward/reverse/park controls and also made it nearly impossible to use the horn, with only a tiny button to sound the horn. The driver is forced to remove their eyes from the road to a) turn on left or right directional signals b) choose forward or reverse c) turn on window washers d) turn on wipers when they fail to turn on automatically and e) press the horn. AT NO TIME SHOULD A DRIVER HAVE TO REMOVE THEIR EYES FROM THE ROAD TO DO THESE FUNCTIONS. Traditionally, any driver could use a left or right hand without removing eyes from the road and use any such control. This is not possible.

The 2021-2022 model X “yoke” steering wheel is poorly conceived and a safety hazard. 1) horn location is tiny, and moves as wheel turns, impossible to quickly activate horn in emergency situations 2) high Beam lights are on a tiny button which also moves and cannot be activated when wheel turns or in an emergency situation, or even when choosing to cross an intersection during a yellow light because a car behind you is tailgating. 3) wheel shape: when used at lower speeds in autopilot Beta mode, the electronics literally rip the wheel out of your hands when turning right on residential streets. It is impossible to maintain hands on the wheel without risk of personal injury during some autopilot beta turns. Safety of the vehicle would be returned if the prior 2017-2020 round wheel with turn signal, wiper control, and gear selector stalks returned. The inability for the driver...

1) low-speed turning is very difficult. makes hitting pedestrians/curbs/edifices much more likely, as well as just holding up traffic and frustrating other drivers. 2) turn signals require looking down at the steering yoke unless you're a real ninja. even if you get the hang of them without looking down, it's too easy to make a mistake. also i've noticed that when i'm trying to use the left signal, the terrible haptic faceplate will sometimes activate the right turn signal. when this happens in traffic at speed on the highway it can cause accidents. 3) horn is a haptic region that you have to look for to activate. i think this is being addressed but it's not sufficient to recall just to replace the current version with one with a normal horn in the middle. the entire thing needs to be replaced with a wheel and turn signal stalk. Elon Musk...