Yep that is normal, you are putting heaps of load on the pulley by doing that which will slow you crank and sometimes can stall your car.

 

With the engine at idle and the air con off, moving the steering wheel rapidly right-left-right (or left-right-left) between the 10 and 2 o'clock positions results in a momentarily power loss at the point where the direction is abruptly changed.

If I hold the rpms at 3000 (gear in neutral of course) and repeat, the power-assist loss is still slightly there, but much less pronounced.

Is this simply a case of the traditional hydraulic power steering pump/fluid running out of capacity, or the fluid being unable to "reverse" its direction of flow that quickly?

Are there any other maintenance procedures that have to be performed on the power steering system, aside from the regular fluid changes?

Cheers.

[Edited by RT - 5/7/2003 2:00:48 PM]