Newbie here!!
Just got this van used and yesterday morning it started with a loud whining which is coming from the pass. side near the pump, which gets loader as you turn the wheels. After driving for a few minutes however the sound goes away??? I was hearing a slight "chirp" every so often with the A/C on the other day and just assumed it was the belt that probably needed replacing (54K), but could that cause the whine in the steering to? The fluid is not leaking and it is full, so just wanted to see if someone could give me some ideas before I start replacing stuff.

 

The "chirp" is probably a bad bearing in the belt tensioner.This can be replaced fairly easily.You can use a long wooden dowel or screwdriver held to your ear to listen to different bearings and figure out where the sound is actually coming from.BE CAREFULL if the belt gets ahold of the listening device you could end up on True Stories of the E.R!!!

 

Just a though, but is it possible that its the wrong PS fluid (weight)? Maybe its to heavy/thick and its taking it sevral minutes to warm it to then the fluid out and thats why it goes away after about 5 - 10 minutes down the road?

 

Sometimes the belt tensioner sticks due to corrosion and won't maintain tension. It is easy to break free. Put a long-handled socket wrench on the nut in the middle of the tension pulley. Turning it as if to tighten the nut, should swing the tensioner down against a spring, removing tension from the belt. If it doesn't swing back up by itself, work it up and down with the wrench. You can slip the belt off and squirt WD40 into the swing arm. When it is free, push it down again and slip the belt back on.

 

Just curious if you could provide a progress report on this...

I have a '03 Grand Caravan Sport (3.8L) and I am having intermittent whine sounds from under the hood. It seems to be most noticeable after coming off the highway. The whine is definitely engine RPM dependant, and occurs even with the tranny in N. The noise becomes slightly more pronounced with steering wheel movement - loading the power-steering pump seems to increase the whine.

I tried to use the "screwdriverstethoscope" tonight, but the noise faded after a few minutes of idling. I'm guessing it's the idler pulley, or something more expensive like the power-steering pump. Any help/suggestions are appreciated!

 

Is the noise more of a groan than a whine? My 2003 Grand Caravan would "groan" when I turned the steering wheel from side to side. Also, it got worse in colder weather. I changed out the power steering reservoir and the noise went away. The reservoir has a filter or a filtering material inside of it that must have been clogged a little, bogging down the power steering pump. I got the reservoir at the dealer for a little over $20 and about 1/2 quart ATF. No more groan!

 

The noise that I experience is more of a whine which is definitely intensified by any steering action. My fluid level is good, and I don't think the fluid has ever been contaminated by any shops - I do my own oil changes. The only work that was ever done on this was a factory recall which replaced a hose in the PS system (apparently found to be a potential fire hazard if a leak developed above the hot exhaust manifold.) I'd like to believe that the dealership wouldn't have messed this up and contaminated the fluid somehow.

Anyhow, the whine problem has become more frequent, so I purchased one of those mechanics stethoscopes at Harbor Freight Tools. Each of the bearings have a certain unique sound, but clearly the noise of the PS Pump is closest to what I hear inside the van when the problem presents itself. I've also found that I can aggrevate the power steering pump into making this noise if I drive around the block in 1st gear so the engine revs at about 3000rpm for a short time. After this, the whine (or moan sound) seems to persist for a few minutes.

I'm interested in this idea of replacing the fluid reservoir - sounds way cheaper than a new PS pump. Pherdog, from what I've described, does it sound like replacing the fluid reservoir is a potential fix for mine?

(Also, is there a way to post an audio file .mp3 to this post? If so, maybe I'll try to record the sound - yes, I'm having second thoughts on that "whine" vs. "groan" question....)

 

stratman2,

I would think changing the reservoir would definitely be worth it for you to try. Your symptoms sound similiar to what I had except the fact you say yours is a whine and mine was a groan. I figure a groan has a deeper pitch than a whine.

It only cost me about $20 to do it so it would be worth a shot.

 

pherdog - I replaced my PS reservoir this weekend. With one quart of fluid, it came to just over $30 (Possibly the price has gone up a tad.) Anyhow, after I started it up, the PS pump sucked the reservior dry and made that same whine/groan - but it quickly went away as I added more fluid. Also, I noticed that the old reservoir did have a fair amount of crud in its filter screen, so I am hopeful that this will permanently fix the issue. Thanks again for your advice. I plan to report back to this post after a few weeks I should know for sure if this fixed it completely for me. -Stratman2

 

The reservoir is a problem and cause that noise but the steeringear's leak a lot on minivans the boots fill up we change a lot of leaking gear on the mv and always change the res at the same time