While driving the car down a busy 4 lane road at 55mph on [XXX] around [XXX] in Irvine, CA, the car began to shake as the steering locked up and alerts came up on the dash that the power steering had failed. After turning the car off and on it did not fix it. Leaving it off for 15 mins seemed to make the error go away. We had it towed to Tustin Tuttle Chrysler dealership for service. The dealership found the fault code in the log, it was a power steering control failure. They could not replicate the circumstance and insist on releasing the car as safe to drive; putting my family and the public at great risk. The dealership refuse to even run diagnostics on the faulty identified part. They said if they cannot recreate the problem they won’t fix it, even though they see the error code on their scanner. They shouldn’t be telling me the car is safe when it is clearly not. They only drove it 30 miles and did not check wiring or even pop the hood. They have done no work to deem it safe and this is fraud. Rochelle, the service manager, has told us over the phone that she will not work on the car, because she believes she will not be reimbursed for the work. She has said she has had the car for too long and wants it picked up. Her service advisor Erik, has read us the codes found over the phone and also told us that no one has worked on it and only has test driven it. Our greatest concern is the dealership is not servicing or repairing vehicles and putting very dangerous cars on the road. This is a public safety issue for all of Southern California. Additionally, this car was purchased with a full manufacturer’s bumper-to-bumper warranty, of which it is still in its covered in the next 3 years or 40,000 miles. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)
NHTSA ODI 11628082