Power Steering
Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2024 11:47 am
Many thanks to Geoff for replying to my post about this earlier in the week. I've taken a video to try to illustrate the noise made in both park or drive, but for some reason I can't upload it here. A local garage changed the power steering fluid and flushed the pipes a couple of weeks ago as the steering was feeling erratic (sometimes fine, other times really heavy) and since then, the van has made this groaning/whining noise, which changes with the engine note (e.g with gear changes), and fades once the engine warms up. It's worse when you turn the wheels, but still there even when wheels are straight. The van has been back to the same garage but they're pretty clueless now and just concluded the van needed a new power steering pump. Second opinion from Ian Taylor (by text), who has never had to change a power steering pump in a Bongo, suggested the aux belts might need to be replaced and to spray them with WD40 as an experiment to find out whether that made any improvement. It didn't. There is a power steering fluid leak as the reservoir regularly needs topping up, but that's nothing new, although it has worsened. The steering is now worse than it was before the fluid change so does anyone think it could be the pump after all? Thanks