thedoc, open your trunk. lift the spare tire cover and have a looksie to see if you have standing water in the spare tire area. Your vehicleyear is prone to have water issues there. Just a thought.

 

It sounds like damp or corrosion somewhere. Don't let an ignorant mechanic near your car or take their word for anything - major expense lies that way.

 

Sorry for the necropost, but the same thing happened to me. Shutting off & restarting cleared it, but it also seems to affect the power steering. It was noticeably heavier feel, speedo was flat, and error message showing.

Is the computer involved with the steering, as well?

 

There are about a dozen computers, all networked together. Several things can make them suffer - water in trunk or engine bay being examples and of course a failing battery being #1 common issue.

The cluster (aka dash aka IP aka ICM) has its own computer.

The power steering doesn't, exactly, but I think the PCM (aka ECM) raises the revs if it detects the pressure rise due to the steering being used (past some point).

So you seem to have multiple errors, not obviously connected unless by power/ground/battery/charging/etc. They're probably your first things to check, and thus also the trunk for damp/water.

 

Sounds like bad power/ground/battery, possibly damp. Will probably come back, maybe as different issues because those sorts of underlying problems cause lots of nasties. But you may be lucky......

 

OP's description married 99% (I also had red oil can icon on dash) with my car's fault yesterday, I read this post, disconnected the battery (after reminding myself what the PIN code is) left it for 1/2 hour and all was corrected back to normal. Many thanks.