Last year, my power steering had gotten noisy, so I checked the fluid. It was low, so I topped it off, and forgot about it. The end of last week, I had to put in more fluid again. Yesterday, it let go.

Does anyone here have experience replacing a power steering pump on a 2000+ bonnie? I'm wondering how long a job it would likely be, and what kinds of surprises or special tools or odd parts are needed.

Same thing happened to me not too long after I bought my bonnie (with 24,000 miles on it). Dealership replaced the steering rack saying that it had an internal leak in it that could have been there from the factory.

I hope that your problem isn't the rack, but I had all the symptoms of a bad pump. They replaced the rack and everything is back to normal now.

Must be that kind of weekend....mine isn't noisy, but sure popped when I made a turn in reverse to park this morning. Kind of groaned too. Great. What fun to look forward to.

Steering actually kind of shuddered too while turning at idle. Is this something you are or have experienced?

The popping and groaning sound like the steering gear resonance problem that was a recall item. You should have it checked out. I don't think it causes any problems, other than being noisy. But if its a recall, you should be able to get it fixed for free, I think.

I sure hope it isn't. I can imagine that wasn't cheap to repair.

I hope for your $$$ state that it isn't the problem. I was told that the leak was on the drivers side exterior seal into the bellows area and that it never showed up because the bellows is sealed. The tech pulled 1 qt of fluid out of the bellows on the drivers side (or so I was told).

The total bill (not billed to me - thank god for the extended warranty) was ~$1,300 USD.

The popping/groaning was a technical survice bulletin (if I'm not mistaken) and not a recall. The difference is that a TSB is not a free repair while a recall would be.

Could you tell yours was leaking, or was it all contained? Mine'* been a drip for a while, then gushed on Saturday when I topped off with castrol fluid that has the stop-leak additive. I only got about 2 miles before it was like driving a tank with manual steering.

No visible leak on mine at all. However, I put enough fluid in to fill the res and everything was decent (I say decent because it still didn't feel right) and took it to the dealership. This was all 1 week after I had purchased the car used so... Really my extended warranty did not have to pick up the tab for this seeing as how it was covered by the original 3yr-36k mile GM protection plan as well as the 90 day no hassle warranty from the dealership that NYS mandates and my up to 75k mile or next 5 year extended bumper 2 bumper warranty. All bases were covered, lol...

If you have a leak, track it down and hope that it'* just a hose or the res. I would bet that if it leaked out that quickly you either have a cracked res or a cracked line.

last time something like this happened to me was on a '76 grand prix. There was a little more room under that hood... I had a really hard time tryng to see anything saturday. Damn res is so far down and to the rear on this car. Well, we'll know soon enough. Taking it in tomorrow for a look-see.