Hi all

Just noticed in the last couple of days that when turning left the power steering is making a intermittent noise when close to full lock.
It does it the same when turning to the right but not quite so bad.

checked the power steering fluid today and it has sprayed out from the cap on the bottle all over the back of the headlight units.
It was over filled when i checked it, it was the same distance again from min to max over the max don't know if that would make much difference
cause that's where its been since i bought the car.

How important is it to have mineral based fluid in it?
Last time I bought mineral based power steering fluid it was clear this stuff is red that's in it. Or does it just depend on the brand what colour it is?

 

That sounds like dextron.... Which is a no go for European cars. The mineral based is very important. Audi's fluid is greenish when new

 

thanks for the reply

Where is the best place to drain the system to get the most powersteering fluid out?
And how much powersteering fluid does it take?

 

Unfortunately there is no drain.... It has to be sucked out. We have a flush machine at our dealer that has two pumps.... One for vacuum and one for fill. So while its sucking out the old fluid it's pumping in the new fluid while the car is running....mbecause you need the aid of the power steering pump the get the old fluid out of the rack and the new fluid in.

If you were doing it at home.... You would need to disconnect the return to reservoir line and run that into a catch bottle. Then have someone start the car while you dump the new fluid into the reservoir. You would need to do this until all the red fluid is out. You would go through a lot of power steering fluid and it would most likely make a huge mess.

Another less than effective option would be to drain the reservoir and fill it with the correct fluid. Run the car for a minute. Shut it off and drain and fill the reservoir again until all the fluid is the Audi fluid. Also pretty costly in fluid.

You could call your local dealer and ask them how much to flush the fluid the fluid for you and you can weigh the cost vs benefit of doing it yourself.

I wish there was an easy option for you but there really isn't

 

I have changed the power steering fluid, still the same
changed the power steering pump and it's still making noise
Only does it when the car is idling when the car is driving there is no noise from the steering.

Any Ideas on what to check next?

 

It was the alternator pulley that was causing the noise, fixed now.