Anyone driven a vehicle with electric power steering? How was it, any problems while driving?

Many of the small to mid size cars have electric power steering, like the Hyundai i30. It will probably fail at about 10 years, and is very costly to replace.

Had a big 16ft long Dodge 1967 Slant. Didn't have power steering and it saved me $$$ to pay a gym to work out.

I saw a big Yank-tank with power steering once ... it had one of the front wheels stuck in a dirt rut ... almost ripped the tyre off the rim when the driver applied the power steering to try to get out of the rut.  :D

No we're talking about electric power steering. I bought a Kia equipped with it and it doesn't feel right when driving straight ahead, it feels stiff when making those small adjustments while driving along. When chucking a "U"ee it feels good, pretty light but when it's back at the straight ahead position, it's stiff again. My elbows get sore dodging pot holes etc where only a slight movement of the wheel is required

The suspension may have been designed with too much caster, and the low profile 16 inch tyres probably don't help, but something makes the steering resistant to movement from the straight ahead position. It's quite annoying and spoils an otherwise nippy little car

Bias_2012 wrote on Dec 4^th, 2020 at 9:09pm:

No we're talking about electric power steering. I bought a Kia equipped with it and it doesn't feel right when driving straight ahead, it feels stiff when making those small adjustments while driving along. When chucking a "U"ee it feels good, pretty light but when it's back at the straight ahead position, it's stiff again. My elbows get sore dodging pot holes etc where only a slight movement of the wheel is required The suspension may have been designed with too much caster, and the low profile 16 inch tyres probably don't help, but something makes the steering resistant to movement from the straight ahead position. It's quite annoying and spoils an otherwise nippy little car

I have a Kia Cerato sport model ... my steering is not stiff the way you describe but there are those 3 settings of "drive mode" that I find to be pretty useless. On "sport" mode, the steering is stiffened up a bit and the gear changes are altered. On "Eco" mode, the steering is loosened considerably and the gear changes are weird. It holds in higher gears too long before dropping down, I don't see any fuel savings happening at all in "Eco" mode, so I stick to "Normal" mode all the time these days.

Captain Nemo wrote on Dec 5^th, 2020 at 1:19pm:

Bias_2012 wrote on Dec 4th, 2020 at 9:09pm: No we're talking about electric power steering. I bought a Kia equipped with it and it doesn't feel right when driving straight ahead, it feels stiff when making those small adjustments while driving along. When chucking a "U"ee it feels good, pretty light but when it's back at the straight ahead position, it's stiff again. My elbows get sore dodging pot holes etc where only a slight movement of the wheel is required The suspension may have been designed with too much caster, and the low profile 16 inch tyres probably don't help, but something makes the steering resistant to movement from the straight ahead position. It's quite annoying and spoils an otherwise nippy little car I have a Kia Cerato sport model ... my steering is not stiff the way you describe but there are those 3 settings of "drive mode" that I find to be pretty useless. On "sport" mode, the steering is stiffened up a bit and the gear changes are altered. On "Eco" mode, the steering is loosened considerably and the gear changes are weird. It holds in higher gears too long before dropping down, I don't see any fuel savings happening at all in "Eco" mode, so I stick to "Normal" mode all the time these days.

I've never experienced anything like it before, I reckon they ought to go back to hydraulic power steering. I believe the electric steering was to save weight, space and cost, but with hydraulic tried and proven for over 50 years, why change? No complaints then

There is of course the problem may be in the design of the suspension, or the two combined, electric steering and suspension, they may not be a good match. But I also suspect the tyre width versus tyre depth ratio is wrong for the car and possible loading up the steering beyond what's comfortable. Deeper tyres are more flexible and are easier on the steering

The 3 modes on mine are "Sport", "Normal" and "Comfort". I keep it set to "Comfort", but like yours, there's not much difference between the three and all have that slight tightness for the first two degrees of turning the wheel

I'll try an experiment, I'll over-inflate the tyres for a day and see if that makes any difference