Hello folks and Happy Thanksgiving. Recently my 2013 Explorer had a check battery charge appear on my dash. Upon driving it to my local Good Year, the steering wheel started to become extremely stiff when turning. Almost like it locks and can only turn a little when giving speed.
Apparently there are lot of issues with 2013-2018 explorers and their water pumps. Especially with how it’s placed in the engine. It’s costed a lot of people money and I mostly paid for labor. I scrapped up some money from my savings, ran my credit card for the remainder of the amount, and drove back home.
2 days later, behold, the light comes back on and the steering wheel is locking up. 2k+ in the hole and now I can’t drive to my mechanic.
Has this ever happend to anyone and if so, what should I do. I’d my mechanic 100% responsible for this diagnosis and fix? I never knew that a car I spent 30k and it only HAS 78,000 miles would cause me this issue today. Please help with any advice. Thanks!
Quick update for everyone to contributed to this post. Everyone has been helpful and I appreciate taking the time to reply to my post. I took the advice of two redditors and attempted to drive to the mechanic. All went well and right when I got to my parents house to drop off my dog, the battery was completely juiced out. Luckily the mechanic is about a while away. I phoned them, explained my situation in distate, and one of their mechanics can by my car with a booster to to keep on the battery nodes and I drove it there. From there, I questioned what happend. The mechanic who was out of the shop that day had the answers so I was forced to leave my car their overnight. At this point whether the pump needed to be serviced or not, im pretty pissed the original issue wasn’t addressed. I’m afraid my brand new battery is fried too. I won’t be coming back to this mechanic ever again. As far the water pump, im almost positive it needed to be serviced, but it makes me question how they can so a massive water pump job but can’t fix the simple charge system issue that was indicated on the work order.