2013 Ford CMAX ENERGI - Ratings, Complaints and Recalls

"on the morning of 12/13/23 i got in my car to go to work. upon starting my car the warning light for service power steering came on. i noticed the car was very hard to steer when existing my drive way. i drove the car back into my neighborhood to see if it was safe to drive in traffic. the steering was so tight and steering wheel would fight me wanting to return to center. with the fault code still present i went home and inspected the steering system and hooked up my scan tool to the obd port. i had a fault code of 3000-53 and 3000-49. the 3000-53 would not clear. i have found online other fford vehicles with recalls for the same steering system setup, but not on the ford c max. if this had happened when i was driving on the road at a high rate of speed it would have caused a serious accident, as the steering was very unresponsive and actually fighting my input of direction."

"i went to change lanes and all of a sudden the steering became difficult. i thought the car had lost power, but it was only the steering. the sudden loss came as a surprise and did cause me to loose control momentarily during the lane change. shortly thereafter a warning light came on indicating the power steering needed to be serviced. i was able to arrive at my destination safely, but power steering was completely out. upon restarting the car the problem went away. returning home later that evening the problem returned about 5 miles into my trip. i returned home and shortly after brought the car to the auto parts store to see if there was a code on their scan tool. no codes, but this time when the car was started the warning light came on immediately and power steering has quit working 100% of the time."

"i started the car and could not move the steering wheel without great great effort. “power steering failure” notice appeared on dashboard."

"the contact owns a 2013 ford c-max energi. the contact stated while driving approximately 30 mph, the steering wheel locked up. the contact stated that it was difficult to turn the steering wheel. the contact received help from her passenger to pull off the road. the contact stopped and turned off and restarted the vehicle and the power steering functionality returned. the contact stated no warning light was illuminated. the contact stated that the failure was intermittent. the contact stated that she had stopped driving the vehicle. the contact had not taken the vehicle to a local dealer or independent mechanic. the vehicle had not been diagnosed nor repaired. the manufacturer had not been informed of the failure. the failure mileage was approximately 140,000."

"steering warning light came on after driving away from home. power steering failed, no possible way to move steering wheel. powered vehicle off. next day, steering worked and took vehicle to ford dealer. upon inspection by dealer, the steering gear failed and needs to be replaced. vehicle has less than 50,000 miles driven. in my opinion, this is a manufacturing issue that ford needs to review and possibly recall. this could have been very serious had the failure occurred while i was driving the vehicle."

"i started my car & put in reverse the service power steering light came on & my steering wheel locked so i put it back in park turned the car off waited a moment & started it again the problem stopped. i then got online to troubleshoot & see that there is many complaints about this happening but it worse situations when they were actually driving & almost had an accident due to not being able to steer the vehicle. now i'm scared it will happen when i'm driving next time. this is a life threatening problem & the fact that its a know issue should be fixed by ford at no charge or you will end up with class action lawsuits for putting peoples lives in danger !!!!!"

"the message to service the power steering suddenly appeared and the steering wheel could not be rotated, when we were at our drive way. i felt to be very lucky for not being on the road when the loss of power steering occurred. after i turned off the engine and restarted the car one minute later, the power steering problem disappeared and i was able to drive the car again. about one week later, i sent the car to a ford dealer for inspection. the test result showed the error code u300-49:08 and the internal electronic failure type. the dealer recommended replacing the steering gear at a cost of over $3000. we have just completed a 7-year service contract with the same dealer. thus, the car should have been well maintained."

"was driving my 2013 ford cmax and heard a noise in the front. i took it to the local belle tire and they replaced the upper inner front tirod. still had issues and heard noise. took it to a repair facility and they claimed they heard no noise. two weeks later my steering assist warning light came on and i lost all steering capabilities. luckily i was not injured. ford has recalls for this same issue on other years and models. due to the severity of this problem and possible casuality ford should issue a recall for this part. i had to pay $2100.00 to repair this problem"

"after making a stop at a rest stop traveling from portland, or to the dalles, or, when we got back into the car and started it, a warning light came on saying “service power steering. see your dealer.” from that point forward, we had no power steering and had to drive home that way. we know after doing research that ford has a recall (15s18) for this exact problem but because there weren’t as many cmax vehicles sold, they did not include it. we had to drive home almost 60 miles at highway speed to get home."

"power steering fails without warning making it more difficult to steer than manual steering. turning car off resets electronic control module but that is no guarantee that the power steering won't fail again while on the highway."