johnnyb588

Hi all,

I am thinking that searching the forums helped me find my diagnosis, but I want to check with some of the experts (I'm a total noob) just to be sure, and to get some ideas from you so I can confirm.

On startup after my '04 V6 6MT has been sitting long enough to fully cool, I get a soft whine coming from the passenger side of the engine. The whine seems to be affected by the revving of the engine, the rotation of the wheels, and movement in the steering wheel as well.

It is not a squeal. It's definitely more of a soft whine.

As the car heats up (usually after only a minute or so), the whine goes away. There are no noticeable effects as far as driving is concerned.

I'm thinking it's P/S related, maybe a bad o-ring (I'm hoping for that over a failed pump, of course). What should be my steps to diagnose? Or if you have a different idea as to what the problem is, throw it out there if you would.

Thanks

BLKFLSH

While the engine is cold, you can remove the serpentine belt, and run the engine for a minute without it, just to make sure the sound stops. If the whine stops, I would try changing the inlet joint o-ring and check for other leaks before replacing the pump. If the inlet joint o-ring is not orange (new part) I suspect that is the culprit. Good luck

johnsc2235

I second that.. Assuming your fluid is at the correct level, Also depending on how many miles are on it you may need to replace the thick hose from the pump to the reservoir as we have seen those get hard and not seal properly cause air to get in and cause cavitation. Look in the ps reservoir and see if there are a lot of air bubbles or foaming. Some bubbles are normal but excessive bubbles means air is getting into the system causing the noise

Almighty-Si

Also if fluid is dirty, I would recommend a flush. Remove the reservoir and spray brake clean through all the ports, let dry and fill with new fluid.

johnnyb588

FYI, I'm planning on taking a look at it this weekend. The whine is slowly getting worse, but I still haven't had any problems with steering. I'll update this thread with the fix once I get to it.

Thanks to all for the input!

johnnyb588

Fyi,

I finally got around to looking under the hood this weekend. The PS reservoir was a tad low, so I topped it off. The whine is gone. I should have done that a few weeks ago, but I just kept finding excuses to ignore it.

The thing that finally got me to look under the hood is that my car threw 33 new codes on Saturday. Turned out there might have been some arcing going on, so I taped it up for now and it's good as new.

Thanks again for the tips, everyone.

00siandrew

Not sure, but I'm fairly certain that the 2004 accords were also covered by that power steering hose recall. Did your car get fixed? They were having an issue with one of the hoses leaking; some cases bad enough the cars were catching fire.

SpeedOFsmell

Yup, youre right andrew

johnnyb588

I fixed the hose once on my own before the recall and had a dealership fix it about a year ago at no charge. I'm not sure how the fluid got low, as I see no evidence of a leak. I'll monitor the situation to see if the fluid level keeps dropping and see if I can locate the leak (assuming there is one).