denaliman

My wife's 2003 3.0 quattro has developed a leak. Looks like power steering fluid, but i do not know where it is coming from. The leak does not appear to be huge at this point. The only reason I noticed it was because it had snowed and when she pulled away there were a few drips in the snow. Not sure if it is the seals or the whole rack. I checked inside the engine bay and found nothing from the hoses. Anyway to be proactive if it is the rack where can I get a new one (other than the dealer) in Hamilton, GTA area? I will have an Indy shop do the install. Perhaps someone may have some other ideas to check.

THX.

seanf

I would check out your local Napa, the one here has a good selection of parts and can get most other things next day and are the same brands that ecs tuning sells like meyle and the like

denaliman

THX seanf. I do not think NAPA sells genuine audi. Anyone know where I can buy Genuine Audi rack in Ontario other than the dealer??

PwrDriftr

I too had a leak in my 04 A4 3.0 and it turned out that the rack was leaking. Apparently a rack leak is not repairable and requires the replacement of the entire steering rack. It's a bit costly. Racks, are around $900 and labour is about $600. I just had this done on my car in January.

Since your car is leaking make sure you keep the power steering fluid topped up. Audi's need a special fluid as well. You may want to drop in to a dealer and get a small bottle of power steering fluid.

As far as I know, you can only get a rack from the dealer. But they'll give you a $300 trade in for your broken rack. A new one is around $900.

K04-S4

Are you loosing power steering fluid over time?

If there is a rack leak, you should be able to see a wet rubber boot inboard of the tie rod when you turn the wheel to one side and look behind the tire. If the rubber rack boots are dry then it's likely not the rack.

veedubb

My B6's rack was leaking from the passengers side boot and was running down the right side of the car behind the exhaust heat shields. It took me a while to find out where the leak was coming from. When it was on a hoist, I shook the rack dust boot and the leaked fluid was swishing around inside the boot.
So I just replaced mine a couple of weeks ago by with a rebuilt one I purchased from Rack Doctor in the U.S. All told, it costs me around Cad$519 delivered to my door. UPS took about Cad$120 of that (damn crooks) for broker fees and hst.
It wasn't really that hard to do but having a second person to assist made it much easier. The trickiest part was to have someone hold up the new one to line up the mounting bolts (there are 3 of them) and putting in the 4 washers on the banjo bolts for the pressure lines. In all, I did it in less than 3 hours at a moderate pace because it was hot and humid as hell.
I agree with PwrDriftR that you need OEM Audi PS fluid. It's green in color and around $25/L from the dealer. I bought 2 litres for the job but only needed less than one so I returned the unopened one and got a refund. I also did an alignment.

No more leak, woo-hoo!

veedubb

After telling my regular mechanic about it, he laughed at me and suggested I should have called Custom Steering Gear in Markham. They rebuild racks and only charge around $400 + $100 core. They took my leaky Koyo rack and gave $25 for it. I didn't want to return mine to the Rack Doctor for $100 core because he didn't want to budge on using the UPS crooks to ship mine which was why I ended up paying more than I should if he would've used US Postal Service to ship.