Power steering woes

Fisherman1 · Sep 9th, 2005, 10:22 PM

I have a 98 Nissan Frontier with 106K+ miles, 4 cylinder engine. For a month I've been having an intermittent hum / groan under the hood. The Nissan shop diagnosed the problem as the power steering pump. I had the pump replaced and for a day the problem went away.

Now it's back to its old self. When I idle or get to cruising speed, I hear an intermittent groan / hum. It's louder when I turn the wheel left or right. When I accelerate the sound goes away. When I settle into cruising speed, the sound comes back. When I decelerate the sound comes back. The system has plenty of fluid and the fluid is clean. I can hear the groan if I let the truck idle when I get out.

What is the problem, what should I look for, and how do I correct it?

Thanks.

Fisherman1

himilefrontier · Sep 10th, 2005, 02:11 AM

I normally don't endorse "mechanic in a bottle" type products, but I know if one that actually has worked for me in a variety of cars, and worked for long periods of time. I would empoty out the power steering system of fluid and mix 1 bottle of Lucas Power Steering Stop Leak and how ever much PS fluid it takes to fill it back up. Cycle the wheel until it smooths out and that should fix it. I used it on a girl's Chevy Citation at work that had no steering at all in one direction, and it works like new! I also put it in my B14 Sentra 10k miles ago and it works/sounds perfect too. Hey, it's only like $9 a bottle, so why not try it?

If you want to try somethign else, try this: cycle the steering wheel back and forth several times at varying speeds while simultaneously varying the throttle. This is how you usually bleed a power steering system after it has been apart.