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« on: 23 January 2011, 22:23:04 »
I enjoy running cheap to buy luxury cars to keep the mileage down on my main car and I reckon that our Omega has proved to be one of the best value cars I have ever had. Consequently it has now stayed for a year and a half. It has proved itself to be 100% reliable and unbelievably well specced and if it wasn't for one small fault it would be a dream car for what we paid for it.
The problem is the steering.
Sometimes I can make a 50 mile drive and the steering is faultless. Another time we can be 2 or 3 roads from home, stop, make a right turn and the steering is so heavy it takes a lot of strength to get around the corner. Then it is fine again on several of the next equivalent stop and turn right manoevres.
It is only a problem at roughly idle revs so low speeds fortunately. It seems to only be on right turns (once on a left). The problem is eased by increasing revs.
So I am reckoning the steering pump could be worn out? The car has done 149,000 miles but it has had a no expense spared history and pretty much everything else on it is perfect.
The steering fluid is clean and at the right level and the never loses any.
I replaced the belt that drives the pump and it made no difference.
At its last MOT about 6 months ago the garage never noticed anything wrong despite moving the car around quite a bit (actually around the block for a reason I haven't yet worked out) but said the steering idler was worn so I replaced it. That made no difference to this problem.
Now you may think this is odd but there was an air leak at the front of the engine where a pipe fitting had broken. I repaired this and that actually improved the steering and made the problem much more of a rare occurrence.
So before I go replacing the pump, I have read other odd bits eg an idle control boosting revs for the steering pump etc; steering relays etc. Is there possibly an electronic rather than a mechanical answer? Seems like if this was an old 80s motor I could adjust the idle speed up and the extra boost would give the pump more kick. That said I think the cars normal resting idle is perfect.
If the pump was knackered would it really give perfect steering most of the time?
Any ideas? What would an expert check?
It is a 1999 3.0V6 Elite estate
Thanks for reading this waffle and for any replies
