As my wife was exiting the freeway a few days ago, she said the steering wheel locked up. She was not able to turn either direction. After pressing the brake pedal several times, she said she heard a 'click' and the steering wheel re-engaged. I have tried to get the car to do this again, but no luck. Any suggestions? Someone told me that the steering rack had a piece of sludge that became trapped and the back and forth of braking dislodged it. The car has 82K miles on it. The power steering fluid is full and all belts and pulleys seem to be fine. Is this something the dealer will have to find and fix?

 

I just posted about the same problem on a 2006 Sonata. It has happened to me at least five or six times over the past three to four months all occuring when exiting the highway to a ramp just like you said. Have you had any luck solving your problem?

 

It started getting worse. It would only lock up when turning to the right. I took it to the dealer and those fine Hyundai trained mechanics said all the power steering fluid had leaked onto the belt, causing it to slip. Their next comment was, 'the power steering reservoir is full'; after a blank stare, they stood by the comment. When I asked why I had not seen ps fluid on my garage floor, they said it was all on the belt, so it could not make it to the floor. So, I took it to a reputable local garage. They tested it and could not get the problem to happen when they drove it. After some guessing, we chose to replace the power steering cylinder (rack and pinion). The mechanic said it was an expensive guess, but agreed with me that it was better to guess than have a wreck with two small children in the car. With that said, we have had no problems since we fixed it. Was that the problem? We are not sure, but it has seemed to work. Hope this helps.