Zafira with power steering fault
This '61 plate Zafira came in with a power steering fault. The customer said that it felt heavy on turning and when he lifted the bonnet the previous evening to check the power steering fluid level he noticed that the power steering reservoir cap was missing. Very strange indeed.
We know that you wouldn't normally have taken this cap off as it is located right at the rear of the engine, very low down and is pretty difficult to gain access to it. As the vehicle is quite new we wouldn't have had to get to the reservoir to top up the fluid at this kind of age and mileage.
Once we started to gain access to the reservoir/bottle we noticed that there was a huge amount of white liquid in the reservoir. After investigation we realised that it was water mixing with the power steering fluid. It became clear that as the reservoir cap was missing and it had been leaking in water. Because of it's tricky location at the rear/bottom of the engine, it is open to rain water coming from puddles in the road. It was then realised that the pressure build up in the reservoir, caused by power steering fluid and water mixing, had made the cap literally to blow off at some stage and in turn the rain water had contaminated the power steering system. There is a very tiny hole in the top of the cap to release pressure and we think that at some stage rain water had been leaking into the system via that tiny apperture.
We used a power steering flushing machine and cleaning agents to flush through the power steering system. We then filled it with fresh power steering fluid and worked it through to ensure that, as best as possible, all the water was out of the system.
We road tested the vehicle and it all appeared fine and in good working order.
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