Power steering questions…

[allroadadi]

First time RS6 owner here… I mean I had the car for a year and I’m getting it back to life.
Anyway, does the power steering on these cars not ‘help’ as much with steering on purpose or is the pump not working right? I own 2 other C5 Audis and both have way better power steering . On this car I have to put some effort into it to steer and I wonder if that’s normal? To explain it better, it’s like half working so to speak. I had a car with no power steering and this doesn’t feel like that bad, but it’s also not the usual steering I’m used to it…
Thanks!

[srichards]

No. It's normal weight power steering. Is it worse turning one way rather than another? Some of the front steering bits can go stiff with lack of use or wear. Mine was a bit heavy until I had something changed but can't remember what it was.

Check front tyre pressures are ok as if they're low then adds resistance.

Power steering fluid level check. Does the pump make a lot of noise? Is it definitely working?

[steve2003rs6]

I don’t get the impression of heavy steering while I am driving.
Put it this way. I can drive the car using 1 finger on the steering wheel for normal straight driving.
However I couldn’t do that making full turns on corners or 3 point turns where both hands are needed.
That goes for my old rack and my replacement rack.

Don’t get me wrong the steering doesn’t feel light , but at the same time it’s not particularly heavy.

[allroadadi]

No. It's normal weight power steering. Is it worse turning one way rather than another? Some of the front steering bits can go stiff with lack of use or wear. Mine was a bit heavy until I had something changed but can't remember what it was.

Check front tyre pressures are ok as if they're low then adds resistance.

Power steering fluid level check. Does the pump make a lot of noise? Is it definitely working?

Both ways I have to put in an effort to turn. It’s the same for either side.
The pump did make noise after I took the front end off completely (including the power steering cooler) due to air in the system, but I got rid of the air using the service manual procedure (front end on jacks with the engine off turn the steering wheel 10 times from end to end).
Tires are good on pressure, just double checked. It was the first thing I checked
When I had the ABS rebuild I did take the steering fluid reservoir off to clean the screen. It was clogged up (on the different S6 forum a guy was saying that if you have a geyser in the reservoir with the engine running the screen is clogged and he was spot on, after cleaning it no more geyser, it’s more like a waterfall).That helped a bit, but the steering response is the same. The pump is working for sure (hence the water fall effect in the reservoir) but I wonder if the pump is somewhat clogged up too since the screen was fairly dirty so it’s not working at full potential?

[srichards]

I don't know. It might be clogged. I have no idea if there's a good and safe way of cleaning it all out.

Did you take out all the old power steering fluid and replace it?