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Steering wheel hard...
 
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Steering wheel hard. Power steering? Or rack and pinion?

  

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I have a Nissan Altima 2015 4 cylinder 147000 miles That I bought about 7 months ago I didn't notice before I bought it that I had gone through a car accident front driver side around the headlight all the way around the driver door. Well shortly after someone ran into me in a light I was turning left and the person was coming straight fast for some reason didn't stop at the light and crashed into me. Hit the front passenger side just around the side didn't hit the front passenger door only around the wheel but he did hit me kinda hard. So got it fixed everything was good for while. But recently I hit a sidewalk from the front passenger side and well a while after like a hour or two i ran a couple errands everything felt good nothing felt out of place so before heading home I went to a gas station and all of a sudden the car steering wheel to the left side diver side became harder to turn really hard and fast in a matter of a minute or two. Lucky I was able to go park there in the gas station. Wait for it to cool down and went to go check the oil and power steering didn't know what was wrong well finally some one helped out and figured out it was the power steering reservoir was empty went to go buy and filled up and it did hold the power steering for a very little while 10 minutes max just the driving home luckily I was able to make it home and able to park it in my back yard. I finally was able to get under the car to examine it correctly. I seen where it was dripping the passenger side rack and pinion bellow/boot had got torn up a hole on it. That's the only thing that looked out of place. So I went to buy the part and put it in and finally thought everything was going to be okay took it for test drive around the block luckily only around the block. Because the steering wheel slowly became harder again. And I noticed it dripping. Since I had fixed the bellow/boot I thought maybe it was the oil dripping since I had took the opportunity to change the oil and oil filter since it was passed due tought maybe I didn't tighten it up right or something like that. But to my surprise the driver side bellow/boot had came off for some reason it was only tightened with a zip tie nothing else was wrong with the bellow/boot only came of since it was only tightened with a regular zip tie. I got a extra hose clamp and tight it up put 1 quart if power steering in the reservoir since everything had spilled out. But when I turned on and tired to turn it side to side it would become harder after a few turns. And the power steering would show empty so my dad told me to put another 1quart but then same problem and he insisted on another 1 quart but to me that was to much already since I knew it shouldn't take more than 2. So I started asking around and they told me I had to take the air out of it and finally tired but idk if I did it right I got the kit and got a lot of air out. But still it gets hard after a minute or two idk if it's the air in the power steering reservoir or something else 


1 Answer
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It sounds like you destroyed your rack. You were supposed to jack up the car so both wheels are off the ground and add power steering fluid with the car off. Slowly rotate the wheel from lock to lock a few times to get most of the air out. If it's gushing out when there's no power, you destroyed the rack. There's a fail-safe, in case the hydraulics fail, you can still mechanically guide the wheels from left to right, but it's now limited to the maximum force you, yourself, can generate. There is always a mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the rack. Power steering simply assists the driver.

A running pump with no fluid, or barely above the fluid line cavitates, which the pump was not designed for, and it can trash it.


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