2007 SAAB 9-3 Power Steering fail
Discussion
Morning folks, this is more of a post to assist others should they end up with the same predicament.
A couple of weeks ago I jumped back into the car and started it up to find the steering incredibly heavy, initially I jumped out to check the tyres in case I had a flat which wasn't the case. I then turned everything off and back on, to which everything was fine again.
Roll on to last week and my wife is driving the car on the school run, on getting back in she has exactly the same, but this time no matter of restarting etc helped and it was heavy as hell to steer.
I spent a good amount of time going through the obvious, levels, leaks, connectors etc. Even got into my Haynes manual and googling trying to find the fuse for the power steering (There isn't one) Mostly I found doom and gloom posts regarding failed pumps and even steering racks. However I did find one little post stating that the power steering is the first thing to go if the main battery runs low. I run my car as a daily and I've never had any power issues, but with nothing to lose I connected my CTEC battery maintainer and it was indeed only on 3 bars of the available 8. I left it overnight and the next day it started fine, steering back to normal and no issues. Its now been a week since and fingers crossed its all fine still.
So my point is, if you get a failure of your power steering and there's no obvious reason, before you chuck it into the garage for someone to look into it, check your battery!
Hope that helps.
A couple of weeks ago I jumped back into the car and started it up to find the steering incredibly heavy, initially I jumped out to check the tyres in case I had a flat which wasn't the case. I then turned everything off and back on, to which everything was fine again.
Roll on to last week and my wife is driving the car on the school run, on getting back in she has exactly the same, but this time no matter of restarting etc helped and it was heavy as hell to steer.
I spent a good amount of time going through the obvious, levels, leaks, connectors etc. Even got into my Haynes manual and googling trying to find the fuse for the power steering (There isn't one) Mostly I found doom and gloom posts regarding failed pumps and even steering racks. However I did find one little post stating that the power steering is the first thing to go if the main battery runs low. I run my car as a daily and I've never had any power issues, but with nothing to lose I connected my CTEC battery maintainer and it was indeed only on 3 bars of the available 8. I left it overnight and the next day it started fine, steering back to normal and no issues. Its now been a week since and fingers crossed its all fine still.
So my point is, if you get a failure of your power steering and there's no obvious reason, before you chuck it into the garage for someone to look into it, check your battery!
Hope that helps.
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