how many of you guys have had your power steering go bad? Mine has started to show signs of going out. At first, i thought it was just a fluid related thing(it used to boil over at Heatland park on the roadcourse). I changed fluid and did one more autocross. It seemed fine. This morning i drove the car to work and i noticed it was practically gone as i backed out of my driveway. Once i got going it was fine. It did it a few more times today, never while im driving, only parking the car/backing out of places. Like i said, it only happened twice out of the six times i parked the car today.

Is there any other possibilities? Can something also affect this?

anyone have a good writeup on changing it?

Serpentine belt? Check the tensioner?

I know when the water pump was going on the black car the other day, all the coolant being spewed on the serpentine belt caused it to slip while I was backing into a parking space. It felt like the power steering went out for a split second, and then it worked again. Of course, you'd smell coolant too if you were having this problem.

i replaced my pump and Optispark 9K ago, cant be that. But, i did use an engine degreaser on some parts just over the belts to clean up after i changed my PS fluid. I wonder if it was that, but it was more than two days/100+ miles ago?

Until now, its only done this after three runs back to back( i had co-drivers at my last two evetns)

It isn't all that unusual for the pumps to go bad after a lot of high-RPM use. Mine made it four years running Redline for most of that.

Check for dark, burned-looking PS fluid or any evidence of a fine spray of oil from behind the pulley.

will do

Oh yes it can!! Just because it is new doesn't necessarily mean it is good. Check for leaks.

The other ideas are great, too.

Our 9C1 has a weak pump that starts groaning after a couple of months. I can change out the PS fluid and help it work a while. One of these days I'll replace it, but as long as it works....