Power steering pump is fixed on my car and steering is pretty much normal but I have a new and strange problem. Keep in mind that the car was driven with a bad power steering pump (before finally deciding that WAS the problem) for about 3 weeks before getting it fixed finally so I expect something else may have gone bad in the process of the power steering being out and the parts not being lubricated properly. Here's the situation:
Start the car up, throw it into reverse, back out of my spot in the driveway here and turn the wheel to the right to make the turn before straightening out. While making the turn I can hear a groaning type noise coming from the right-front of the car somewhere. I can hear that same groaning noise when making right turns at slower speeds at higher speeds it's less of an issue as I haven't heard it at speed yet. When I get on the brakes, and yes... my brake rotors need to be replaced because I can tell they are warped since they have some nasty vibration going on there, and come to a stop my steering tenses up and then once I hit the throttle and take back off it'll stay a bit tensed up (still very turnable but tighter than normal) and then finally it will loosen up. I've come to a couple conclusions of what could be causing this but wanted your folks opinions.
My thoughts on this are:
1.) Possibly a bad wheel bearing? The car seems to vibrate some starting at 75 mph or so but it's in balance - it'll run perfectly straight down the road.
2.) Funky rotor causing the problem or potentially a brake pad on the right front sticking on the rotor? I don't know if this is even possible but thought it *could* happen and knowing my luck with the strangest things going bad on cars I figured I wouldn't rule it out.
So what do you guys/gals think could be causing it? I'd love to hear your suggestions. Tried to make this as clear as possible but at 1:30am and needing sleep sometimes that's a little hard, LOL.
Forgot to mention - car should be on profile but it's a 1997 Cavalier, 2.2 Liter 4 cylinder, 2-Door Coupe (Base model).
Hi Braxas
that's a good description of the noise made when the power steering fluid is :-
a. Low
B Has air in it and requires bleeding.
Try checking the fluid level and bleeding the air out, if necessary.
Alont
^^^^ def bleed it. Since the pump has been taken off and another put on it has to be bled when you put fluid in. You gotta add fluid, leave the cap off and turn the wheel all the way from side to side until the air bubbles in the fluid go away. Was there any fluid still in it when you drove it those 3 weeks when the pump was bad?
There was still fluid in it when I drove it for the 3 weeks when it was bad, yes. However, the power steering pump was SO bad I don't think it was pushing fluid through it very well at all - plus when the new pump was put on they had it way overfilled and had to let some fluid out to bring it back down to normal level and now it is.
But thanks for pinpointing the problem. Dumb question. When I take the cap off and turn the wheels side to side I'd assume I do this while the car is running right? I just don't want to make it worse and I never actually had to bleed the power steering fluid line before so this is a new one for me. I'd bet the mechanics at Meineke certainly did not do that considering how overfull it was to begin with (way up past the hot line even when the car was cold). Once I know this I'll go out and bleed it, certainly not a hard thing to do that is for sure.
yes while the car is running.
You could also have a bad rack and pinion from not having it lubricated during those 3 weeks. I deff. bleed the system first and if that does not do it, look for a new rack.
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Hit 200 NA it broke once, Hit 213 it broke again,
Hitting 300 NA is further away than I thought.
Seems like that fixed it up as far as taking the groaning noise out of the right front so I think it's fine now. I had two different shops look at the rack and pinion steering and both said the rack looks good, no leaks and all that stuff so they don't think anything is wrong there and now I believe it, it feels good again from what I can tell thus far. We'll see how it goes but thanks for the information on bleeding the power steering fluid folks. Would've never thought of that by myself.
