How to Diagnose the Power Steering System for Buick Enclave

If your steering wheel is hard to turn, especially when still, or you hear an awful whining when you turn the wheel, it’s time to diagnose the power steering system in your car, truck or SUV. More case about Buick, please refer to Buick Trouble Repair.

 

The first thing we need to do is check the power steering fluid level.

Take this filler cap off, and pull this cover off. That’s where the reservoir is.Take a rag to ipe the reservoir off since there’s any dust.

Wipe the dipstick fist then doubt check it. We’ll take a look at where the fluid level is.

There’s min line which is where the fluid level is, and a max line.

We found the fluid is right at the min line, which doesn’t really concern us that the fact that there’s a major leak.

We still want to check for leaks because we don’t know who topped off the fluid last, someone could have topped it off last week and it’s already gone down to the min line. So after this check for leaks if it was way down we know there’s a leak and we’ve got to find where that’s leaking from if it was a little high it’s still a good idea to check for leaks. Not only the level of the fluid but the condition of the fluid,so we want to see if there’s any bubbles in the fluid or if it’s aerated or milky at all then there could be something wrong with the system where there’s air getting into the system or there wasn’t enough fluid and it’s causing it to foam up.

So while we’re still above the vehicle and with the hood open, we can just take a quick look see if any of the lines that come off the reservoir we wet.

The power steering line doesn’t look wet too.

It looks ok from up top. Now we want to check out the common areas where there could be fluid leaks from the bottom side.

The hose looks ok.

The steering rack itself also ok.

Around the fittings where the lines go in that’s dry . We want to take a look at the boots themselves, if they look like they’re swollen at all, if they’re like pressed out and then you sometimes can see almost like a watermark at the bottom of the boot most likely there’s fluid inside there and that’s leaking from inside the rack. The only way to fix that is to replace the rack

Low pressure power steering line that comes from the rack, there’s no fluid leaking.

Now we’ll look at the power steering pump.

As we can see, there is fluid actually coming out of the pump. In our case we’re going to have to replace that pump. If you haven’t found any fluid and you were still having a issue, most likely the problem is going to be in the pump. Another thing you want to think about is the tension on the belt if the belt tensioner isn’t putting a lot of tension, it could be slipping over the pump itself and that would cause a lack of power steering. Also if you go through a puddle and water gets on this that could cause a lack of power steering as well.

Another thing to think about is the tire pressure you. You want to make sure your tires are properly inflated or that’s going to put a lot of strain on that power steering system and can cause some issues.

If you replaced any of those components, you’re going to have air in the system and it’s got to be bled out properly.

To prevent power steering issues, it’s a good idea to flush that fluid out once in a while. You don’t need to do it all the time and it’s probably not going to fix a problem if you’re already at that point.