Several months ago I noticed the power steering fluid in my '96 Maxima had a burnt smell, so I flushed the system by disconnecting the power steering pump return hose from the resovoir, running the engine a few seconds to drain the resovoir, reconnecting the hose, filling the resovoir and repeating this four times. (Used Castrol brand fluid). Fluid smelled fine a couple days later when I checked. A month later it smelled burnt again. The fluid is still red though. The aluminum cooling loop that runs in front of the A/C condensor appears to get hot too. The car sees a fair amount of rush-hour/city driving. Have others experienced this, or should I start looking for a cause of fluid overheating or consider installing a power steering oil cooler? Thanks,

--Nate Wall

[Edited by natewall on 01-17-2001 at 09:34 AM]

 

Maybe the pump is going bad? I don't know how else the fluid will get overheated. You should flush it one more time. This time jack up front of the car. While the engine is on, turn the steering all the way side to side. This will get rid of all the fluids in the rack and pinion. I don't think you did this the first time. You might not have flushed all the fluids out. You just got the ones in the resovior. Maybe the burned fluid you got the second time was from the fluids you missed that's in the rack and pinion. Try that and see. If not, you might want to get the 2K maxima's power steering cooling loop. On the 2K, the loop is longer so more cooling.