So the light for my power steering came on my 53 plate VW Polo FSI last night, turned the engine off and off it went for the 10 minute drive home however this morning as soon as i turned the engine on it would not go off and i no longer have power assisted stereing.

Does any one know of any way to fault find the steering system to determine what is at fault.

At present i have not had time to check anything so the first things i’ll be looking at will be fluid level then the fuse but beyond that i’m at a loss.

Any help would be great.

Cheers

Rusty

I am pretty sure the sensor is a fluid level sensor so to start with the fluid has dropped to the level where it shows the alarm and as you kept driving it has obviously lost more fluid so it stays on and now their is not enough fluid to run the power steering. I wouldn’t run the car until the leak can be identified and fixed.

I get this on my Ibiza every now and again (03 plate) and it only ever happens in the winter and more so in damp weather.

Blokes on the SeatCupra website, reckon it’s some kind of signal fault when the car starts up and claim to have sold it by putting some kind of grease (dielectric??) in the connector.

With mine it only happens when I turn the ignition on and if I turn the ignition off and back on again it is ALWAYS ok.
Do you wait for the power steering light (orange steering wheel) to go out before you actually start the car? I have found that tends to stop it happening, but haven’t done it enough to say whether it is coincidence or not…..

It’s a weird one, because re-starting the ignition has ALWAYS stopped the light coming back on and restored the power steering. And I have never experienced any problem with the power steering while driving.

Ok, cheers for the posts

Steering fluid seems ok

I have turned the car on, wait for the light to go out then turn it over and the light comes back on again.

Steering is definately been affected.

I think it could be one if 2 things now:-

The Steering Angle Sensor or the Steering Pump its self.

Does any one know how to fault find the steering system to figure out which one could be at fault?

The two parts are not exactly cheep Sensor = £100 Pump = £300

The only sure fire way to diagnose one of the two parts is tohave it plugged in at a garage to read the error codes. But it might be worth pulling the plugs of everything you can find and put some kind of grease or WD40 type fluid to see if it is a bad connection like Stumpy suggested.

Problem is, depending on the problem, once the light is on and staying on, it won’t go off unless you connect to a sensor reader. My VW dealer charged 50 quid for a reset so I found a local Bosch tuning guy who did it for free (as long as any repairs I needed went back to him).

So a bit of precussion engineering has determined it is the pump that is on it’s way out. A bit of tappy tappy with the engine on then turned the engine off and the light is out and the steering is working.