I'm driving and enjoying my new (to me) 99.5 A4 1.8T yesterday when suddenly the power assist for the steering vanishes. I'm assuming that the belt broke, as one second the power boost was there, then its gone! For whatever reason I'm not able to use the search this forum feature, but I'm wondering how tough it is to replace the belt. I've replaced a fair amount of different belts before, but if its a real PITA, I'll just take it in. I'm assuming that its not part of a serpentine belt, as the rest of the car has still worked fine for over a day now. Is it just a belt that goes around the PS pump? Do you have to take any other belts off or do any other work to get at and replace the belt? Or, should I just make an appointment for Monday and let them do it? Other than that, the new job is going well!

 

Did you look under the hood? I believe the serpentine belt drives the PS pump your car. If that went you would lose more than the power steering assist. Possibly a bad PS pump but check the fluid first. It's possible that the hose going to the cooler broke and you ran the pump dry.

 

I'll go and take a look in the daylight today under the hood, I was just too busy the last couple of days to take a look while it was light out. That would suck if the pump went, probably more $$$!

 

what year and engine is your car... on the aeb you should be overheating too cuz the water pump is on the same belt. replacement isnt too hard... removing the front clip makes it alot easier

 

It s a 99.5 with the 1.8 motor. I just went outside (I'm in WI, so its like 10 degrees here-was trying to avoid it!) and took a look. You were right, it sure looks like a serpentine belt covering everything under there and my belt seems fine. I then looked inside the steering fluid tank and it was nearly bone dry. From the (very) quick inspection I did, I didn't see any obvious leaks. I refilled the tank and the steering is working again, guess I will see what happens next.

 

Well, there's definitely a leak somewhere because its dry again, didn't take long at all. I'll have to look it over in the daylight tomorrow.

 

i feel for ya bud. Time to drag out that cardboard under the car and let her run. The drips will point for you to follow the slimy mineral oil trail. Hopefully its a cracked hose.

 

Hey, thanks for the sympathy, this could be a PITA. I had to work today so I didn't have much daylight time to spend under the hood, but in the little time I had I didn't see anything obviously broken as far as hoses go. Getting some cardboard and filling the darn thing sounds like a good idea, unless anyone has any other direction to point me in. I live in an urban area, so I do a lot of parallel parking, which REALLY SUCKS when you don't have power steering!

 

Another guy (think it was Mr Phil) had an issue recently too. It was suggested that he inspect the steering rack for leaks. Take a look for wetness on the inner tie rod boots - that'll be a giveaway that one or both of the hoses at the rack are leaking. I hope for your sake that's not it. Took a LOT of time, beer, swearing, sweating, and the manufacture of a tool or two for a group of us to change it out on Hiwords' car. We had five guys who know their way around an Audi and it was a no-joke capital P pain in the ***.

More likely, based on what I've seen around here, you may have ruptured a line somewhere under the hood. The pump may have failed too, as noted above. Replacement of the pump isn't bad.

 

Well, I had some time today to take a good look under the hood and didn't find anything obviously leaking. Since this is my first German car since I had a 450SL years back, I had to find a decent indy mechanic near me and the guy who used to work on my Acuras (well, if you can call it that, because nothing really goes wrong with an Acura like apparently it does with an Audi, more like scheduled maintenance!) recommended a little shop not far from me. The guy charges $60/hour, which sounds pretty good to me for a foreign specialist and he's going to take a look tomorrow. He said he's quite familiar with the A4's and that its common for the hoses to crack at this age. The previous owner had a lot of work done to the car, including the timing belt, but said that the tranny fluid and whatever fluid you replace in the quattro system should be changed soon, so I'm having that work done, too. The mechanic said that actually works out well, because he'll look for the PS leak while the other stuff is being drained, thus saving me a few $$$ on labor time. I'll be sure to post what he finds for the next guy that runs into this problem.