My power steering recently became noisy and I assumed my car needed a new PS pump after 207K miles. Thanks to some good information from June on the MVS site it turns out the reservoir can cause the fluid to aerate and pump noise. I did see air bubbles in the fluid while the car was running. After pulling out the reservoir I could hear something rattling inside so I cut open the reservoir to find out what was going on. There was a support piece that broke away from the return line tube inside the reservoir and also a crack in the tube almost the full length of the tube. I think it's the crack that was causing the aerated fluid because the crack extended about the fluid level.
Anyway, a new power steering reservoir solved the pump noise problem, which was a less expensive fix and avoided the hassle of replacing the pump and still having a noisy pump. It looks like sometime during the 2005 model year the PS reservoir design was changed so this problem may primarily affect models prior to 2005.
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