My 05 TL has been suffering from a loud and annoying power steering whine for a few weeks now. When i bought the car 2 months ago it had no such whine. Last week i replaced the O-Ring, still had the wine. This week i resealed the pump and now the whine is WORSE and my steering wheel has now got extremely hard to turn when the car is stationary. My patience has completely run out i will do absolutely anything to get rid of this sound.

 

might want to lift the car up and check your steering rack. The pump is whinging because it is really working

 

I checked the rack its not leaking or anything.

 

is it binding up?

 

What do you mean by binding up? So should i completely count out my pump as being the problem?

 

its your steering rack...doesnt need to have visible leaks for it to be going bad. its not an easy job since you need to drop the subframe. its approx $1200 to put in another one

 

Ok cool i have warranty so if i replace it and still have the same issue i'll come back to you since you seem to know exactly what the problem is

 

if you have warranty just take it to the dealer.

 

I had a whine and then I changed the fluid. Whine gone.

Consider pumping a couple of qts of fresh fluid through before doing the final fill, this collects any remaining deposits and old fluid left over.

 

When i changed the inlet hose and did the seals on the pump i changed the fluid each time

 

Checking out the car as we speak and while the car was on i turned the the wheel from stop to stop (struggled to even turn the wheel completely both ways even though the car was stationary it still shouldnt be THIS hard to turn the wheel) then turned the car off and opened the reservoir and there were absolutely no air bubbles at all not even tiny ones. Before i sealed the pump the fluid was foamy and had a lot of small bubbles. Im guessing this is a good thing? But oddly enough now that i have no bubbles or anything in the fluid the noise and steering wheel hardness is worse than ever, this is so embarrasing when im turning the wheel around other ppl their faces just scream "WTF IS THAT NOISE?"

 

When that issue happened to me on my Accord, it was the PS Pump going bad, have you checked that?

 

Did you replace the bearings in the pump and inspect the internal parts for wear and/or damage?

 

How did you seal the parts exactly? Drain the PS fluid from the container on the car and take off the exit hose. Get a hose of the same diameter and lead it back to the top of the container. Place the EXIT hose that you disconnected earlier into the top of the container too. Have someone turn the car on and look for leaks in the system. If it doesn't leak have the person check the steering tightness now. I'm thinking that you may have clogged an inlet or exit hose and you should be able to see the fluid circulating with the exit hose removed.

If the fluid is barely moving then the problem you have is a failed pump or blockage! If it's moving well then the problem is with your steering rack.

 

Today i replaced the pump completely with a new one and the noise is completely gone and my steering wheel is back to being smooth im so grateful that it wasnt the rack. Plus my mechanic told me that 80% of the time when the rack is bad it leaks PS fluid so if my rack wasnt leaking he knew it had to be the pump.

 

Sounds like you are relatively handy, but if you have the warranty why didn't you just let the dealer take care of it? Just curious.

 

Im sorry, when i said i changed the pump i really meant i got it changed* only work i did myself was replacing the o-ring so yes i did bring it to the dealer to get it done.