Hello all, Had to do some a/c related work on 02Z today and ran into a problem. Disconnected the battery to remove to better be able to get to a/c lines. After everything put back together we start car to check a/c. Alls fine however the dreaded pull key, wait 10 seconds followed by service column lock messages appear on dic. Now I had this problem about 5 months ago and took it into Chevy and they fixed it. They said it had already had the recall done years before so they did some new revised thing which involved blocking the locking pin or something like that. Anyway, now this happens today. The wheel does not lock as the pin is blocked. However the computer thinks its locked and as soon as you try to drive it, it shuts down. We tried disconnecting the battery for 10 minutes, pulling all the bcm fuses, scrolling through and clearing any codes from dic, and recharging the battery just in case of low voltage. Nothing worked. Why would disconnecting the battery trigger this event? Also checked relay above bcm in foot well and it seems to be working fine. In drivers side dash on left side there is the relay installed that i believe was part of the initial fix for this problem that evidently didnt work so well. We are stumped. Bet its something simple that we have over looked. Any advice? Thanks for the help

 

Do you have DTC B2809? If so there is a 2005 TSB addressing that failure.

#PIC3531: Service Column Lock Message DTC B2809 - keywords BCM DIC MIL program RPO service - (Apr 29, 2005)

Bill

 

dont know.......cleared codes manually with dic. Did not have a tech 2

 

Should be able to start it and try to run it again. That would generate new codes if it still fails. Lack of codes leads to a lot of guessing.

Bill

 

I would start with checking the torque on the battery cables. I believe they should be 11 lbs/ft. If they are dirty or not torqued correctly you will have strange codes. Since you removed the battery cables I would check there first! Good Luck.

 

Got it going today. My car has both the original factory fix and the revised factory fix for the steering wheel lock issue. We removed the relay ( wrapped in foam ) under the drivers side dash area and that fixed the problem. Dic cleared and car drove fine. I think low battery voltage started the problem and the electronics just got confused LOL.
I hope it doesn't happen again. Probably just need to get my tuner friend to raise the default speed of 2 mph too 200 mph if the steering lock message comes on again. At least I won't be stranded as the wheel no longer can lock on my car .

 

Forum member 8VETTE7 is the expert on this system. That relay, if I'm thinking of the correct one, will burn up if the battery voltage drops too low, resulting in the column lock issues happening again.