Hello,

I live in upstate NY where it does get cold Occassionally, not always, the steering on my '06 C280 gets very "hard" to operate when it is cold outside (below 40). The car is parked in a garage overnight, but is in the open during the day. Rarely, if ever, the problem is noticed when leaving the garage. It is this intermittent nature of the problem that confuses me. Any ideas or pointers?

Thanks!

(also posted in General Tech at https://mercedesforum.com/forum/show...248#post130248)

 

Hello again,

Seems the problem may be fixed now...

Some days back it so happened that the drive started fine, but there was a message on the information panel showing that the passenger side light was not working. Pulled over (was still in the parking lot) to confirm that the light was indeed not working. Got back in the car and this time the steering was hard again. Got me thinking.

The next day I took the car to the dealership to get the bulb and also told them about the steering. Told them the whole thing and emphasized the fact that steering was not hard at the start but then got hard on the second start, and that I thought this didn't look temperature related. They wrote the problem up and said they would check it out. A few hours they called up and said that the service advisor did notice some issues with the steering as he was pulling the car into the service bay and then the techinician found that a code on the car listing that the valve that controls the power steering mechanism relative to speed was malfunctioning! They had to order the valve (seems more like the entire assembly) and replaced it. Seems to be working okay now.

Thought I'd update the post...