been hearing this a while.. thought my PS fluid was low.. checked it.. its normal. any ideas? sounds like a belt is straining or something. either direction?

 

Dude, does it happen only on full lock or near full lock turns?

 

Nope... once i turn the steering...

 

I guess my question is how much do you have to turn the steering to hear it. I had a similar problem, but only when doing full lock or near full lock turns on a warm engine. never happened in cold conditions.

 

does it do it when your driving?
Well, it sounds like you have air in the system, its pritty much a pain in the butt to resolve, your going to have to flush the PS system. Its best to take it to a shop that does flushes, or if its somewhat stock still then take it to the stealer ship.

 

as for you, that happens to any car when you go lock to lock because the PS system has to create more PSI to push the piston to go farther...thats normal but when you hear it doing that at full lock to lock back off a bit, saves on wear and tear.

 

I wish that was the case. In my case, the sound does not come when I am just turning the steering wheel. It comes when the vehicle starts moving. For example, if I was stopped at a light and am waiting to make a turn, lets say I am fully stopped and my steering wheel is turned almost all the way to the right. as soon as I start moving on 1st gear, I start hearing the straining sound. Like I said, it only happens after the engine gets warm. Similarly, if I am making a turn without stopping in say, the 2nd gear, and I am turned almost or all the way to the left or right, I hear it while the vehicle is in motion.

After a huge disagreement with the stealership, I took the issue up with Mitsu corp and had them look at it. They convinced me it was because my motor mounts were going bad (at 11000 miles!!). So I had them replace all under warranty. Needless to say, the problem still exists time to time, although not as frequent. I even used the opportunity to change my rotors, pads, wheels and tires to a new summer set (was gonna get them anyway) to see if the rubbing sound was because of an issue with them. Still no luck.

To the OP, sorry for hijacking the thread, just trying to put things in perspective is all.