I was on my way to substitute teach at an elementary school in santa cruz, ca and so was in the middle of a lot of early traffic at a left turn signal when i heard a very strange rumble. i thought it was another car as my car had just been in for a 95,000 mile service a few weeks earlier. however, part way through the turn i was almost unable to steer the car. i had to fight the car to keep it from hitting a bicyclist and to get it off to the side of the road where it then stopped steering and died. at that point it was blocking two cars in a driveway, but i could not steer it at all. this was on the street directly in front of the del mar elementary school. i called farmers insurance and monterey peninsula audi where it was towed. i was told the steering column had cracked and the fluid had leaked out. i was also told there was no way to be able to diagnose this in routine services.