Power Steering issues

Hi there, I have a 97 850 with 182k km. Lately, I've been getting an
ugly whirring sound when I have to do more than a 60 degree turn. How
is the power steering taken care of on this car? Could this be a bad
pully/tensioner or something? I also have a pretty bad steering wheel
shake that I drive in and out of after hitting a snow bank a few
months back. I thought it was the tires being unbalanced, so had them
balanced but its still there - could these two issues be related? The
car drives perfectly straight, but the steering wheel wobbles back and
forth. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks
Ben

 

I suspect 2 separate problems.

I have a '97 850 wagon with 110K on it and had noises but pulsing in the
wheel when I made hard turns. After inspecting, I found slight leakage on
the rack, so I replaced and the problem was gone.

On your wheel shimmy, if you feel it in the steering wheel that's good
indicator it's in the front end. Who did your wheel balance? You might just
swap the tires front to back and see if the shimmy moves from being felt in
the wheel to being felt in the floor or your seat, then it was probably
still a wheel balance problem (eg out of balance, bent wheel, etc).

If that doesn't fix it, given your attack by a wayward snow bank, I'd also
be suspicous about the front end and have a good front end man check it out.

 

Thanks for the reply, I'll switch the tires around and see if that
takes care of it. I'm 99% sure that if it were a wheel balance/bent
rim issue, that its the front left tire. I got the balancing done at
crappy tire here in canada, I didn't think that it'd be possible to
screw up something as trivial as wheel balancing.. Hopefully I'm
mistaken, and it turns out they're just morons that can't balance a
wheel.. I'd much rather be out the $50 for the crappy balance job (did
all 4 wheels) than to find out I completely wrecked my front end!

Thanks
Ben