Car is a 99T Astra 1.7DI, belonging to a friend.
Symptoms are flickering battery light and intermittent loss of steering power assistance. When I heard about it, I immediately said "slipping drive belt," but apparently the problem is so bad that it had to be towed home! The recovery mechanic couldn't find the problem. It has since been towed to the local garage as I'm told it won't even start now! Can anyone suggest what the, seemingly more sinister, cause of the problem is?
Stuart Sharp
Happened in our Zafira. Power steering is powered by electric motor, alternator terminal on ours had come loose and intermittenty lost power - first thing the ECU shuts down is the 75A circuit that operates the PAS.
It sounds like a simple alternator/charging fault to me. It shouldn't be too difficult to identify and cure.
Cheers for that, Tim. Makes sense now :-)
Stuart Sharp
It would appear so. I didn't understand it before because I thought the PAS was the conventional hydraulic type and didn't see how it could be linked to an electrical fault (apart from if the belt was slipping).
Stuart Sharp
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