Has anyone had their steering get very hard? Almost like the power steering isn't working. I have rebuilt the pump and it is OK. Bad rack? Looking for audi owners with similar experiences. Car has almost 200 K miles.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

did you bleed out all the air and is any noise coming out of it? but if your pump is good, bad seals in the rack may cause a loss in pressure meaning increased steering effort. also if there is a blockage in the lines, it would cause the same thing.

 

Thanks, yes I bled it, no noise that I remember. If there was blockage, wouldn't the pentosin volcano out of it's container? If the seals were bad, wouldn't the rack leak? I'm thinking maybe the rack is bad but i don't want to pull it out to find it is not the problem. Appreciate the help!

 

by seals in the rack i mean the internal seals that control the direction of fluid flow within the rack, but i suppose if they were bad, you'd be pullin the rack anyhow to replace it. and a blockage would not cause an overflow, last winter i serviced a passat that had somehow taken water into the p/s system and had frozen up, talk about blockage, but the pump never backed up strangely enough. haha, endend up having to use a heat gun to get all the ice and water out of the rack.