Fair Price to Repair Camry Power Steering

My brother had a recent problems with Camry power steering. I don't know all details, but it seems that he noticed leakage from the car that apparently came from PS pump. It was Sunday and the only place he could find to work on it was a local tire store (in Marietta GA). His son needed the car to travel back to school the next day so he agreed to pay what semms to be an exorbitant price to have a new pump installed -- I think it was something in the order of $400.

And then after driving the car home he noticed leakage from hoses and Rack and Pinion. The mechanic said that the old pump was warn and that the new one put out pressure that burst High Pressure hoses and damaged seals in the Rack/Pinion. The total cost to repair was going to be approx $1000. But since they should have noticed this potential problem, they would do the additional work for cost of parts only.

Does anyone have experience with a problem similar to this and what is a fair price for doing maintenance and repair of the PS system?

Reply to
hhyatt
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Your original leak could be from the high pressure hose connected to the pump, and leaking down on the pump and rack area to appear like the pump and rack is leaking. I had similar experience, mech said pump and rack was leaking and need to be replaced. Upon some pain staken time to locate the leak, found the one of the two high pressure hose from the ps pump was leaking only when wheel was locked in either direction, that produced the leak. Since the hose is located above the ps pump and rack, it leaks fluid down and coat the pump and rack assy which appears to be leaking. I replaced the $40 hose, which fixed major leak. There might be a small leak from rack area, but minor amount that can be tolerated. You might want to get a different estimate or just specify mech to replace the high press hose and monitor for other leaks. If there is a minor leak, try flushing out old fluid and adding new fluid and some stop leak additive.

Reply to
jjjsan

Some of the hoses are known to leak at the fittings making it look worse than it really is..He could have just added fluid and been fine until getting to a qualified mechanic... The Powersteering pumps are not very failure prone.. At this point have the hoses inspected and rack inspected. The racks do leak with high mileage. A good rebuilt one on mine cost $450 installed and works great... I assume you are in Marietta, if you were on the northeast side of town I have a honest Toyota ex master mechanic I could send you to.

Reply to
ROBMURR

Is this a joke? Sorry if not, but this same post, almost excatly, was posted in alt.autos.toyota about a week ago by a girl (woman? Sorry...)

You can see the responses there, since all the guys in the group (yours truly included) were tripping over themselves to answer her post!

You'll have all the answers you need. Short answer, no. D> My brother had a recent problems with Camry power steering. I don't

Reply to
HachiRoku

hi, ive seen both power steering pumps and racks leak . racks are usually

700-800 dollars and pumps are $400 usually. my suggestion is not to go to a tire shop but to a dealer. both repairs could wait. you can live with the leak by adding power steering fluid. and replacing the pump will not cause the llnes to leak unless the job wasnt done correctly.
Reply to
toyotawiz

I wonder if thats what happened to my car....over the years i have had

2 pumps installed but wasn't knowledgeable enough to check out the hoses at the time to know the difference.

When my rack went out, the thing-a-ma-gigs that stick out of the rack and push the wheels to turn the cars have rubber accordians on them. If you pushed them back (or looked into them - i forget) you could see the steering fluid that had leaked out the rack.

My mechanic used after market or rebuilt one which were non-toyota dealer supplied which seem to have worked ok.

Reply to
kiselink

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