Unable to steer - Steering wheel disengaged from front wheels

I haven't looked at your video yet but you should look at the steering shaft connection from the steering wheel down on the floor there's a u-joint a flex joint sometimes it can become a skew and create issues but not like what you have here this seems to be something with the electric drive motor above your knees when you're driving that does the steering I have a '07 right now that acts up it kind of sticks in places and it feels funny when the car's off and I'm turning the steering wheel I hit this detent that I don't in my other cars so this one is probably heading to what yours is now It looks like that this thing can take up slop to a certain amount of degrees or whatever and all kinds of things from what I read about it and it feels like it when you move the steering wheel when everything is turned off you're going against some kind of a servo so I guess I'll be pulling that out of my parts car and taking a look at it and putting it in this 06 that I'm talking about looks like you'll be probably doing the same

 

Unless of course some fuse has gone funky and just taking the power away from that circuit I believe that runs on the 12 volt so there should be or possibly as a fuse for the electronic steering whatever that's called I haven't really looked that closely

 

The electric assist for the steering is only that, an assist. The steering connection is mechanical, so if the wheel isn't moving the knuckles, that's a mechanical failure.

 

It's just an assist but can it like self-center itself or some kind of nonsense or something going on inside that thing If I pick my wheels up off the ground and the car is off and the steering's unlocked and I rotate that thing around and round I can feel some kind of feedback or something going on like I'm turning some kind of a gear something another I don't know how to explain it but anyway and it seems it may be able to center itself or some kind of nonsense like that goes on with this thing I wouldn't say it could be bad enough where you could make two turns of the steering wheel and barely move the wheels I'd like to think that isn't possible but listen to what the guy thinks he's saying or whatever thinks he's describing He turns the wheel three turns the steering wheel and the front wheels barely move I guess in the direction he's turning the wheel That's pretty wild. It seems to me something else may go on in that power assist especially if it can self-center and stuff like that I don't know I haven't read that much about it You guys should be the experts but I have a '07 loaded car right now that when I'm driving the car straight down the road the steering sticks literally when I move the wheel to add some input it comes undone from something and as far as I can tell the tie rods and the rack and everything looks good I haven't checked the connection at the slip joint or the yolk or whatever we're calling that but other than that everything looks good but it seems to me this problem in this vehicle is that steering do that I can steer the car it goes lock to lock but when driving only not wen sitting jakd up. I can't reproduce it then I have to be driving the car and it's real annoying if you don't realize it it could make an unsuspecting person possibly go in the ditch I mean they'd have to be the real frantic type but I could see it. And my idea is to change that electric steering thing above my knees everything else looks good my alignment guy had his way with the car and said the alignment is great so who knows.

 

wasn't there a recall for a loose bolt in the steering shaft?

 

That would be great that might explain the OPs problem for sure and man you need to get that checked quick before it lets go while you're going down the road completely and you have no way to go anywhere except for the car takes you holy moly. My problem wouldn't be that as I have full steering just a little bit of a hang up

 

found this:2012-safety-recall-c0t-will-toyota-replace.224104