power steering failed

[rony]

So the other day I get in my car, turn it on and immediately get a PS light on dash. So my question is where do I start troublsehooting? I have no experience with PS, so I figured off the top of my head it could be a relay or a fuse or something? If it could be a relay, how do I go about testing it? All suggestions appreciated, thanks.

[MitchB]

The vast majority of the time, the PS failure is due to a bad PS Main Relay. It is a cylindrical relay mounted to the passenger side strut tower. Two wires are small, two are fairly large.

I don't often recommend blindly replacing parts (especially somewhat expensive relays like this), but this is by far the most common failure. The motor could fail too, but those failures seem to be very rare.

BTW, you can test this by having someone turn on the ignition just as you short together the two large wires, bypassing the relay. Just be VERY careful not to touch the body with any wires.