Recently New Rack And Pinion. Black Power Steering Fluid.

Guys,

2003V6.

Driving home today my steering started to make a godawful noise (left, right, and also over some bumps). Checked the power steering fluid and saw that it was black.

I'd recently had a new rack and pinion put in (a couple of months ago) to correct a heavy clicking noise. They flushed the power steering fluid during that time. Have driven quite a bit since then, and everything was fine until today. It was a sudden problem (on a 5-minute drive). It's also been unseasonably cold here in Louisiana.

Any ideas on where I should start? Would a turkey baster half-flush of the fluid be a good place to start? Spent over $750 out on the rack+pinion repair + new bushels, so I'd like to start cheap before having to replace the power steering pump (or, god forbid, something worse).

Thanks for the help!

Jodi

Thanks for your reply (again), Wm. Having a bad couple of months with this car.

Curious thing was that I'd originally picked up a remanufactured rack and pinion for them to put in, and they said it had a fault as soon as they put it in (same clicking noise, which seemed odd). I wonder if they messed up the first time around somehow, and then perhaps messed up not quite as much the second time when we put a new one in (leading to this problem). Hopefully they still have the warranty for the old one, which is under guarantee, and we can go from there. The mechanics I go to aren't bad guys, but I'm worried that there's been a mistake made (I noticed some clunking, not clicking, post-installation when I turned the wheels to an extreme, so I just did more measured turns on backing out, etc., but it may be a sign of improper installation.)

Will do the baster tomorrow morning when it's warmer out.