I've got an '03 2wd VUE with a V6 and 55k miles. My wife and I bought it in March and both love it. For some time though we've had a little trouble making it believe we've done all the necessary things before getting out of it. So it dings its bell at us and we find it needs to be convinced that it's really in PARK. And one time it took a little turn of the wheel for it's lock to engage to satisfy it. Well, these things seemed minor enough so we weren't complaining.


Last Saturday I changed the oil and reset the oil change light as I've done numerous times before. Sunday after driving it 15 miles and letting it sit 2 hrs., at startup I got a check engine light. Also, all of the dash gages went dead and I lost power steering. Wierd eh? We were on fumes so I drove 3 blocks to a gas station, shut er down, filled er up, and at startup everything was ok. Until I drove 1/2 block-again the light, no gages, and no power steering. So we went 6 blocks to Auto Zone and they hooked up to the computer. They repeated their test 3 times and everything was A-OK. During the tests the light never came on but they said that once something triggers the light, the computer stores it regardless of whether the check-engine light stays on. Their guess was something faulty in the electronics rather than an actual engine problem triggering the light.


Something faulty under the dash might trip the light and kill the gages, but doesn't sound to me like it would kill the power steering. Am I reasonable here? Let me know if anyone can relate to our mystery.

 

I believe the power steering in the VUE is electric power steering, so
flakiness here would in fact be consistent with an electronics-related
malfunction.



Not familiar with the anatomy of the VUE, but is it possible that a
wiring harness might have been disturbed or doused with oil during the
oil change? Sounds like a connection is loose/intermittent-- more
likely under the hood than the dash.



The absence of codes in the car's computer (I'm assuming they tried to
read the ODBII codes) sounds like the problem is truly
intermittent and resolves itself before a "hard" code is set.



You'll have to get the codes read when the SES light is on to get to the bottom of it........

 

I had an opportunity to go back to Auto Zone yesterday to have the codes read while the light was on and it still checked ok.


Thanks for the info about the power steering though, that was new to me.


I didn't have a bit of trouble with spillage during the oil change, so I don't think my problems are related to that. I'm not convinced it couldn't be affected by the procedure for resetting the oil light though.


The nearest dealer is 1 1/2 hrs away. For now it's still a mystery.


Thanks for your input.

 

If there are truly no codes stored (I find this difficult to believe),
but the SES light is on, I suspect you may have more serious
computer/electrical issues.



How are you resetting the oil light?



Derf