Hi Guys,

I have a favor to ask of you...I started to notice some Trans/PS fluid on my driveway after coming home from work. After getting under the car I noticed I have a leak at the transaxle seal. Knowing how much of a pain it is to do it myself, I took it to a shop to be looked at.

The problem is the shop agrees with me, however they also said I have a leaking Rack and Pinion that needs replacement. The thing is after searching the forums...I haven't seen any 5/5.5 gens threads mentioning there rack and pinions going out, especially at 84K... I've seen a ton of threads on the High pressure power steering hose leaking though. Any good advice on sorting out what may be going on? I'd prefer to replace the hose rather than the entire rack n pinion.

Thanks in advance guys.

 

Open your hood and check the level and check the hose. It's attached on the passenger side shock tower. Pull back the foam if fluid comes out its your hose.

 

Most likely the leak is somewhere next to the reservoir. It is rare that the actual rack leaks or the hard lines that go into the rack.

 

Check this first. It's very common on our cars.

 

My car has been leaking slowly from pressure hose for a couple weeks, just kept refilling PS reservoir twice a week, took it to shop and told them to check it out, since they were busy I left car, tech called me two hours later and told me car is leaking from three separate places and it'll cost $1800 to replace rack & pinion and houses ($600 for r&p +$600 labor=6hrs + $600 for hoses).
I took it to another shop and they said they would replace the pressure hose first and see if it's leaking from somewhere else, cost $380.

After reading forums I'm going to replace hose myself, I'm going to check to see how much I can get the hose from the dealer or I'll get one (OEM) from ebay so that I wont have to deal with the noises people are getting from aftermarket hoses.

 

Go OEM if you can and also be sure to buy the copper washers as well to ensure no leaks.