Hey Guys!
I have a 2002 Kia Sedona. Last year we started having trouble with the steering. It seems like the power steering pump is going bad (pump res. is full). Prior to this happening I had the alternator replaced and thought maybe the belt wasn’t tight and therefore the pump wasn’t working correctly. So I took it back to the Kia dealer to have them inspect it and they came back with a diagnosis that the rack & pinion was going bad and needed to be replaced. This doesn’t make sense to me because the symptoms of hard steering were not constant. The biggest variable I have noticed is that the cooler days the more the problem shows up the warmer days it goes away. Since spring came we haven’t had an issue all summer but now that the temps at night have dropped to the 30,40, & 50 the problem has resurface.
Do you guys have a clue as to what is going on? Do you think the dealer is correct?
The rack & pinion diagnosis may be correct. I recall that on the infamous GM X-cars, cooler weather produced steering problems, but that the problems tended to go away during the summer months. And, in the case of those X-cars, the rack & pinion turned out to be the culprit.