The first occurrence was when my wife was alone. The PS light came on and she couldn't steer the car. She called me and I found that upon restarting the engine the problem was gone. After a few days, the problem recurred. The wife stopped the car and restarted the engine. Once again, the problem was gone. As the weeks went by, the PS would periodically fail. However, the interval between failures was less and less. Having some computer repair knowledge, and the warranty for the 10 year old car was long gone, I decided to try to start disconnecting, cleaning, and reconnecting three particular PS rack electrical connectors in an effort to isolate the location of the failure. Each time I went through that process of cleaning the connectors, the problem would go away for a week or so. After 6 months the return of the problem was getting to be too frequent. I talked to a dealership service manager who said he wasn't aware of that kind of problem and that I would be totally responsible for all costs. With that bad news, I became the repairman. I isolated the problem to be with one particular electrical connector. There are 4 extremely thin pins within that connector and when disconnecting and reconnecting there was never the feeling of a snug connection. I tied a small strap on the wiring and put sideways pressure on the connector. I gave the car a test drive and the PS failed almost immediately. I had to stop and restart the engine 6-8 times just to get back to my garage. That told me the connection within the connector got worse. Now suspecting the 4 small pins within the connector to be the problem, I put a few very small strands of copper wire into the female part of the connector. That gave the connectors a snug fit. It has been 3 weeks now and the PS hasn't failed. If it does, I will post the bad news. I have spent about 50 hours of troubleshooting this problem. The dealership would never have done what I did. They would have replaced the wiring harness and/or the PS rack itself and the problem would have been hidden, but not permanently repaired, since the replacement parts would still have the same size pins in the connectors. The problem would most likely recur over time. All electrical connectors, unless soldered, will oxidize over time. You might not see the oxidation, but de-mating, cleaning and re-mating a connector will fix 90% of electrical problems. I know of people who have had a repair facility change their car's alternator only to find out, too late, that the old alternator passed a bench test. Simply disconnecting the alternator electrical connector and reconnecting it to a tester cleaned the contacts good enough to pass the test.

Update from Nov 20, 2015: For more details and information you can email me at linvel@earthlink.net