Thanks for your informative post.

I LOL'd at Scahpe's post. Too bad I had a sip of coffee in my mouth when I did read though, I think he owes me a new keyboard.

That is in a word "outstanding!"

Houston...JULY....in an above-ground parking garage...

If you check your owners manual you will see that the electric power steering is subject to overheating and if such occurs will operate in degraded mode, apparently SEVERELY degraded mode.

And then being forced to "man-handle" it to get it down to the first floor would probably have put a permanent "twist" in the torque tube making it totally disfunctional. Just where is the "CHIP" (power transistor{s}) located..??

Was the second floor open to sunlight..??

Goes to show you that maybe the extended warranty is not such a bad idea with all these electronic components. I wonder if you could source a used one if you were out of warranty?

This same exact thing happened to me today. I was able to back out of my parking space and then it locked up, leaving me on the side of the road waiting for a tow. I find it rather convenient that my EPS went out only 6,000 miles after my warranty was up. I have a Toyota Highlander Hybrid, it's only 3 years and 3 months old with 41,000 miles on it. My total estimate has come to $1717.69, seriously. The repair man at the dealership could not give me any explanation for this having happened and also said it did not appear that it was anything that I did, there was no abuse to my vehicle inside or out. This seems like an outrageous estimate and quite frankly if repairs on this vehicle are going to be this expensive I may have to trade it in. He did say that the EPS failing did not have anything to do with it being a hybrid. This is the first and only I have had with this vehicle, it ran just fine and dandy before my warranty was up. May I suggest that anyone looking into this particular vehicle to lock in an extended warranty.