Power steering has begun to whine & become hard to steer after 286k miles of trouble free driving. No evidence of leaking. Pep Boys advises to see if a flush cures the problem. I wonder why not save the flush money & put it towards pump & hose replacement now…I mean, it’s 286k miles old…isn’t it time to retire.
Retirement time!
If you can fix the power steering whine and restore the power steering assist with just a few bottles of power steering fluid, why not try that first?
Remove the return hose from the power steering reservior and cap the nipple on the reservior. Point the return hose into a catch pan. Fill the reservior with fresh fluid and have someone start the engine. As soon as the reservior empties shut the engine off. Refill and repeat until the fluid going into the catch pan is clean. Reconnect the return hose and fill the system with fresh fluid.
Tester
Instead of a flush, buy a turkey baster or bulb siphon and 1 or 2 quarts of PS fluid.
Remove as much fluid as possible from the PS pump reservoir and refill with fresh fluid. Run the engine till it’s warm and repeat the process a few times. This should replace most of the fluid with fresh fluid. I did this once a year with my Fords (Taurus and Windstar) as preventive maintenance. Both had noisy PS pumps from day 1.
Ed B.