Power Steering Noise Normal?

Greetings all, I hope you all enjoyed the holidays. So around a year ago when I got my truck, there was some power steering noise when I would turn the wheel. When warm, it is a low pitched noise whenever the wheel is turned, and when cold it is a slightly higher pitched noise, but not a screeching noise. I thought it was a little strange, because no other vehicle I've driven had that kind of PS noise. I continued to drive it for a while and monitored the fluid level to rule out leaking fluid to be the issue, and it wasn't. I then finally flushed the PS system with Dex III tranny fluid since the previous fluid looked and smelled pretty old, leaving me to believe it could've been the original fluid. I thought it would be a good idea, and was somewhat convinced it would help get rid of the sound. Anyway, I changed the fluid and there was no change in the sound at all, leaving me a little bit confused as to what the issue is. I changed the fluid 5k miles ago and have put 10k miles on the truck with no actual steering issues, besides the sound. The noise is more of an annoyance than anything, and is something I wouldn't mind resolving if its something simple. The truck has 107k, so I wouldn't think it is the PS pump, but I guess it could be at the end of the day. If it would end up being that, I'd rather just live with it until the pump actually starts to die, rather than throwing money at it now. Do any of you fellow first gen owners experience a sort of PS noise at all, and is this just something I should probably forget about if its not causing me any real issues? Would this be considered normal, do you guys think? Thanks!

 

Is the sound a low, long hollow groan like an old lady farting in a library?

 

Precisely, haha... Interesting analogy there, I like it

 

I have a noise that I have been chasing. It's more of a cheeping noise. It def my PS pump and only happens during a cold start. I think it’s my tensioner because when I went to replace the belt the tensioner retracted slowly vs quickly like on my other cars.

 

I’ve got the same noise ever since I’ve owned my truck and have learned to live with it. It hasn’t gotten any better or worse over the past 60,000 miles and doesn’t effect the steering. When something breaks then I’ll start chasing it down and fixing it.

 

Interesting. How long have you owned your truck for then, and how many miles did it have when you bought it? (Assuming you’re not the original owner)

 

Same here as well. Sound goes away after warm up. I attribute it to the bearings in the PS pump, but that's just a guess. Mine has been doing that well over the last 70k miles. I'm now at 235k and the original owner.

 

Gotcha. So it seems like you have that higher pitched groan in the cold like I do. When you say the noise goes away after it warms up, do you mean it completely silenced itself, or is there a slight low pitched groan still present?

 

No it goes away. But now my PS pump is on the way out since I have a small leak and I'm now getting what sounds like whale sounds out of it. Probably due to the slow leak and getting air in the system but that only happened recently.

 

Yes! Classic old lady farts!