Power Steering Help

[drewbagel423]

Looking for help diagnosing where about the problem is...

Dunno if this is related, but over the past week I noticed as I would turn the wheel, about halfway to either side, I would get this really bad shaking in the wheel until I centered it again. I noticed the tires were low so I put air in them, and it still happened for about an hour after that then finally stopped.

So now it seems like something's up with my power steering system. At slow speeds, or when stopped, the wheel is very difficult to turn at first, and then once I get it about a quarter or half turn it feels like the ps kicks back in and it gets easy to turn again. There is also kind of a whining sound as I turn the wheel and it fights me. There doesn't seem to be an issue if I'm going more than 10 mph or so, but the ps system doesn't really do much at that speed anyway, does it?

Could it be that I need to replace the pump? Is the belt going? Do I need to replace the fluid?

This is on an '03 XLT with ~70k miles. TIA!

 

[IZwack]

First check the fluid level. If all that is good, then chances are its the steering rack. Pumps do fail but they are very robust and failure is not as common as the rack.

 

[trucku]

Disconnect the cooler line drain and fill it a few times with new ATF until it stays clean. After each fill Cycle the wheel from left to right all they way to make sure you get the air out. I had a shaky wheel, but not as bad as you. The fluid change took car of it.

 

[E.B. Cornburner]

Just had a similar problem on a Dodge Stratus last week that was found to be a chunk of crud blocking the suction side of the fluid reservoir. That was an expensive diagnosis too...I'm glad it didn't happen on a customer's car, but rather one for the lot. It got mis-diagnosed as a bad pump, so a new pump was installed, only to act the same way. From there I helped the mechanic look for possible obstructions/kinks in the lines, as that's the next obvious place. One very small kink was found in the pressure line going to the rack, so it too was replaced. It didn't look kinked enough to cause a problem, but you never know. After installing the new hose, no change. After sitting and staring at this car running with its pump whining and growling, scratching my head trying to figure it out, did it finally dawn on me that the pump is cavitating due to a lack of fluid flow to it, rather than from it, so we took the feed hose off the reservoir and very little fluid came out of the reservoir...It should have dumped out. Found a big chunk of crap blocking the hole in the bottom of the reservoir that goes to the pump's feed hose. Cleaned it out, refilled it, and it worked perfectly.