Lose Power Steering Problems of Toyota RAV4

While driving on a local road I started to lose electrical power. At first I lost power steering and shortly after the heat stopped working and all the lights on the dashboard lit up. When I brought the car to be diagnosed the fuse box had been burned and wires melted and there was smoke indicating there had been a fire around the fuse/electrical area.

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There is a dash board alarm indicating lost of power steering. Just recently happened today at 4pm. 5/27/18. I read articles online about recalls on lost power steering on certain Toyota model, why this car has not received the recall. I will not drive this car for safety reason.

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The contact owns a 2007 Toyota rav 4. The contact stated that while driving approximately 40 mph, the vehicle lost power steering with the engine and vsc light illuminated on instrument panel. The vehicle regained power steering once the vehicle was turned off and restarted. The vehicle was taken to the dealer but they could not duplicate the failure. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 106,000.

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Lost power steering without warning in heavy traffic. P/s light came on at the same time. Barely avoided collision with large truck. Started engine after 20 mins. , p/s light out & steering normal. Took vehicle to dealer who found code c1524 (low voltage in power steering). In order to find root of problem I need to pay $200 for diagnostic, which I refused. This is not a wear/tear issue but either a defect or malfunction. Called Toyota, asked them to pay for diagnostic & Toyota refused since vehicle is out of warrenty. Guess Toyota could care less about customer safety even though there are numerous vehicles with same complaint!.

Last night, my Rav4 battery died due presumably to the rear door light getting accidentally turned on. Upon jump starting the car, everything seemed fine. I drove it home without incident. Then, this morning, the battery was not quite up high enough to start the car, so I jump started it again. It started, but a few hundred feet away, I lost power steering and power brake assist. It required every ounce of force I could muster to turn the vehicle around and get it back to my house. Thankfully, this happened on city streets near my house and not on the highway last night or the chp would have been scraping me off a bridge post. The Rav4 cannot realistically be steered by an average person without the power steering assist because of the gearing ratio, making this a very serious design defect. If a vehicle cannot safely operate, the vehicle should not operate. The problem is that, because the battery plays an integral role in power smoothing, and because the power steering and power brake pumps are electrically operated, a low battery can result in failure of the power steering and brake pumps while the engine is still functional. This can easily result in an uncontrollable vehicle barreling down the highway at 80 mph. I believe that fixing this problem requires a fundamental redesign of the electrically operated pumps to add additional capacitors so that the battery is not playing such a crucial role in smoothing out the pulsating DC from the alternator along with the addition of sensor hardware to detect a low battery condition and activate an indicator light until the vehicle is safe to drive. Ideally, the steering gearbox should also be redesigned with a lower gear ratio so that it does not become undriveable. Without these fixes, the 2007 Rav4 is fundamentally unsafe. This design flaw probably also affects most other late models of Toyota.