Loud, Obnoxious Steering Groan/Whine
 

Hello all,

The last couple days there has been this loud noise when I turn the steering wheel left (CCW). It happens when the car is stationary or moving. See video below. Is this a power steering pump, tie rod, u-joint, or what??

Car has around 181k miles

https://youtu.be/EnHbKqVtPpI

https://youtu.be/wxTopxSIehc

Have you checked the power steering reservoir? You could have a leak and now the reservoir is low on fluid.

Power steering reservoir was above the minimum but not at max. I added a tiny bit to bring it to max and no difference in noise

Low fluid alone should make it moan always not just one way and at the end of the range.

Air in the system can make this noise. If you have a vacuum pump you can pull a vacuum on the reservoir. If the vacuum doesn't hold you have a leak. It may let air in not fluid out.

If vacuum holds and no leak, were it my car I would copy what this guy did:.

https://youtu.be/MtFVhxThpNc


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Do power steering pumps fail when the reservoir is always full? It's never been low, even when it was close to the minimum, it was still above the minimum. All of the videos I have seen with noises related to failing power steering pumps do not produce noise as loud as what I am going through. This is more like a rubbing/screeching noise. Also, this happened very abruptly.. I wasn't getting a faint moan or whine that progressively got worse, it was loud to begin with.

With that being said, I am no expert in this area, is the consensus that this is definitely related to the power steering pump? I may take it in for a diagnosis.

Bmw pumps fail when the wind changes directions :)

But one thing most don't know is that the reservoir has a filter in it. This filter clogs over time and will starve the pump causing it to moan if you are lucky or to just cause the pump to fail which in turn causes it to moan.

Either way the reservoir should be changed from time to time.

Loud, Obnoxious Steering Groan/Whine
 

Pump can fail any time but the one direction situation makes me it's rack n pinion.

Were my car I would put the front up take off the driver wheel and have somebody turn lock to lock and isolate the sound source.

If coming from the steering unit I would loosen the boot to get a look inside. It does sound like the Piston scraping maybe it got bent or the seal failed and it's corroded.

@crowz: helpful tip about the screen in the reservoir

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I may not be able to look into it until this weekend.

I went on a drive today and made a couple observations that doesn’t point to a power steering issue. First, when I drive on a bumpy road or hit a pothole the same creaking noise is there. So this sounds like maybe it’s suspension related. Second, if I turn the car off (no power steering) and try to muscle the wheel to turn, the noise is there as well.

Loud, Obnoxious Steering Groan/Whine
 

That sounds like steering ball joint. You can usually confirm by putting your hand on the ball joint while somebody else turns the wheel. (caution goes without saying but worth pointing out). If it's a ball joint you likely have a broken rubber seal and the grease is gone.

If so, a squirt of WD-40 usukaky will eliminate the squeak while you wait for the replacement part.

When this happened to me, I could get it to squeak by pushing down on the bumper.

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