Hey everybody,

My car is having some unique power steering issues. So far it has only happened at idle (fortunately). Anyways, when I turn the wheel either direction the steering gets tight, the head unit quits working (display goes blank, music stops, blower quits), and to top it all of the abs light illuminates momentarily. It almost seems like a textbook alternator failure; however, it is definitely triggered by the power steering. As soon as the wheel gets turned about 1/8 rotation left or right it starts to happen. After the wheel is returned to center everything goes back to normal. As I said earlier it only happens when the car is stopped at idle. It doesn't happen all the time, and appears to be temperature sensetive. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Once again, that's a bad battery connection.

The head unit has zero to do with the steering, except that they both depend on a good battery connection.

The steering uses the most power when the wheels aren't rotating, and the revs are down, lowering alternator volts. The surge of current is too much for the shady connection and volts drops to nil.

Remote possibility the battery is bad, but 99% it's a loose clamp or ground.

 

Thank you. And I know the head unit isn't related to ps; I just stated that to show it's an elctrical issue rather than ps only. I don't know how long the battery has been in there so it's possible, but the car starts fine so I suppose I'll start looking for bad connections. Thanks again .

 

Check the charging system; could be something as simple as a loose belt