While driving to pick up my son from preschool on 1/20/2017, my vehicles steering wheel locked up making it impossible to turn. Subsequently the ESP light began flashing red and my vehicle shut off. I was extremely fortunate to be decelerating in a straight line to come to a stop as well as having no other vehicles near me at the time as this obviously could have been a terrible, deadly situation.

I took my vehicle in to the dealership that I purchased it from (non VW) and they were unable to return any diagnostic codes indicating a problem, and referred me to a VW dealership.

The next day, I took it to VW and their diagnostic pulled up only a code having to do with the battery which was tested and proved to be in great condition. I was informed that they wanted to keep it for a day or so to try and duplicate the issue but they had a good feeling that it was the TIPM that had failed.

After 3 days of unsuccessfully duplicating the problem, they informed me that my best bet is to replace the TIPM and the WIN module. In researching my situation, I found that many 2010 VW Routans were recalled for Ignition switch issues that involved the WIN module being replaced and folks also had experienced the exact issues as myself (here's just one article: https://consumerist.com/2015/04/16/volkswagen-recalls-20000-chrysler-built-minivans-with-ignition-switch-issue/).

Despite this, my specific VIN was mind-blowingly NOT included in any recalls and I ended up paying a whopping $1,659 for the TIMP and Win module to be replaced.

Update from Mar 9, 2017: For record keeping purposes, I'm editing a typo in the above report. The initial incident happened on 1/30/2017, not 1/20/17.