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The Great Power Steering Fluid Disappearing Act
I really hesitated to post this, just because of the shear absurdity of the situation, but here it is...
2002 i35 with 230K. This is now my daughter's back-and-forth to school/job car, so it's not driven a lot. She reports something "happened" with the steering as she was getting into the car for the first time of the day, whilst parked in the driveway. Shortly thereafter I put eyeballs on it and confirm that the PS reservoir is almost empty (maybe 1/4" remaining), AND there is LOTs of PS fluid pooled under the car in the general vicinity of the PS pump. I'm thinking, OK, so the high-pressure hose finally gave up. It had a good run, but time to replace it. Just for fun, I clean up all the hanging drops and pools of fluid all over the lower control arm, and I re-fill the reservoir so I can visually confirm where this catastrophic leak is happening. Should be obvious, right? To my complete and utter amazement, it has now been 5 days and multiple around-town trips in the car, and the fluid level has not budged, not even a little, from the level it was at when I re-bled the system. Pump works fine and everything seems completely normal. No sounds at all from the system. I've read the complete anthology of posts on here about this problem, and haven't found anything exactly similar to this, and I can't even really come up with a plausible explanation. The upper part of the high-pressure hose underneath the black foam is completely dry. Can't really see underneath the heat shielded portion, obviously, but how in the world does something like this happen? For all the world, it seems like she parked the car in the driveway; it somehow then purges itself of all the power steering fluid while not being driven; and then magically healed itself. I was all prepared to proactively replace the high-pressure line, but now I just want to let it go to see if the car will eventually reveal its "trick." Stumped... |
Originally Posted by pethelman
(Post 9258428)
I really hesitated to post this, just because of the shear absurdity of the situation, but here it is...
2002 i35 with 230K. This is now my daughter's back-and-forth to school/job car, so it's not driven a lot. She reports something "happened" with the steering as she was getting into the car for the first time of the day, whilst parked in the driveway. Shortly thereafter I put eyeballs on it and confirm that the PS reservoir is almost empty (maybe 1/4" remaining), AND there is LOTs of PS fluid pooled under the car in the general vicinity of the PS pump. I'm thinking, OK, so the high-pressure hose finally gave up. It had a good run, but time to replace it. Just for fun, I clean up all the hanging drops and pools of fluid all over the lower control arm, and I re-fill the reservoir so I can visually confirm where this catastrophic leak is happening. Should be obvious, right? To my complete and utter amazement, it has now been 5 days and multiple around-town trips in the car, and the fluid level has not budged, not even a little, from the level it was at when I re-bled the system. Pump works fine and everything seems completely normal. No sounds at all from the system. I've read the complete anthology of posts on here about this problem, and haven't found anything exactly similar to this, and I can't even really come up with a plausible explanation. The upper part of the high-pressure hose underneath the black foam is completely dry. Can't really see underneath the heat shielded portion, obviously, but how in the world does something like this happen? For all the world, it seems like she parked the car in the driveway; it somehow then purges itself of all the power steering fluid while not being driven; and then magically healed itself. I was all prepared to proactively replace the high-pressure line, but now I just want to let it go to see if the car will eventually reveal its "trick." Stumped... |
when the high pressure hose leaks it's noticeable, there's a lot of pressure in that line. i think I changed mine out in 2019.
the first thing I would look at is the pump. my first power steering leak on my 02 maxima was the pump. I remember flushing the power steering fluid years back and within a week i started having a leak. come to find out the pumps on these cars are notorious for the shaft seal on the pump leaking. new fluid will have more pressure than old fluid so i believe that's what lead to the leak. I'm running an SKP pump that I got from Rockauto which is a new aluminum pump not remanufactured. another place to check for leaks is the return hose. when those hoses get old and hard they start to slowly leak out fluid. the oem hose clamps also loose tension. I replaced the return hoses with universal 3/8 hose. https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/maxima....b82ec99702.jpg |
Thanks for that feedback, guys! I actually replaced the pump with an OEM new part probably about 7 years ago or so, and it's been running flawlessly ever since. There are no overt signs of leaking around the pump, but I'm definitely going to at least put a socket on the banjo bolt and confirm tightness. I had wondered about some kind of temperature issue as well, but unfortunately, the temperatures were pretty moderate at the time (I live in the mid-South). I've inspected all the other lines (cooling lines, suction line, etc.) and there's nothing more than the standard "weeping" going on. I'm starting to wonder now if the fluid somehow did an "exit stage left" through the passenger side inner tie rod boot, but this is a fairly new boot, so even if it did fill up with fluid, it seems like it would only drip out very slowly over a long period of time, not ALL the fluid all at once overnight? And if it did it once, why would it not immediately do it again?
The level of the fluid has been holding steady exactly in between "Cold Low" and "Cold High" ever since I refilled it and re-bled the system a week ago. This morning it was cooler than it has been for a while, maybe 40 deg, and the level was slightly lower, but I'm going to chalk that up to the temperature for now. So the mystery continues! I've never "rooted" for a system in one of my cars to fail, but at this point it feels like a ticking time bomb, and I'm hoping it will reveal itself soon! I'm gonna have to really coach my daughter on what to do if the steering suddenly reverts to non-power! |
I got a ps leak too and replaced the pressure line before cleaning the area. gonna clean the entire bottom of the engine ps and tranny area then revisit.
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